Thomas C. Wright - Latin America since Independence: Two Centuries of Continuity and Change

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Argentine gaucho, Library of Congress; Madres de Plaza de Mayo, public domain; Women in cigarette factory, Library of Congress; Villa and Zapata, Library of Congress; Porfirio Daz, Library of Congress; Club de la Unin, Library of Congress; Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and Osvaldo Dortics, Associated Press; Evo Morales, Valter Campanato; Buenos Aires harbor, Library of Congress; General Winfield Scott, Library of Congress; Rigoberta Mench, Carlos Rodriguez; Julio Csar Sandino, Library of Congress; Rally for Allende, Library of Congress; Fulgencio Batista, Library of Congress.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wright, Thomas C., author.

Title: Latin America since independence : two centuries of continuity and change / Thomas C. Wright.

Description: Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, 2017. | Series: Latin American silhouettes: studies in history and culture | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2016048439 (print) | LCCN 2017002336 (ebook) | ISBN 9781442235700 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442235717 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781442235724 (electronic)

Subjects: LCSH: Latin AmericaHistory19th century. | Latin AmericaHistory20th century.

Classification: LCC F1413 .W75 2017 (print) | LCC F1413 (ebook) | DDC 980/.02dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016048439

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

I am indebted to the many students who took my class on modern Latin America over the years. Their questions and insights helped lead me to the approach on which this book is based. I am very grateful to the following colleagues for reading and critiquing all or part of the text in draft and greatly improving the final product: Joseph A. Fry, Vincent Peloso, Jerry L. Simich, Robert Smale, Renee Wiseman, Linda Curcio, John Tuman, Michele Kuenzi, Jeff Schauer, Paul Werth, and Colin Loader. I also thank the staff of the Hispanic Division of Library of Congress for their unflagging support and assistance, and Angela Moor, Matt Fledderjohann, and Heather Nepa for technical assistance.

I am grateful to Rowman & Littlefield executive editor Susan McEachern for suggesting that I write this book and for her guidance along the way. I also thank Audra Figgins and Rebeccah Shumaker of Rowman & Littlefield for their expert assistance and Mary Fran Loftus for help with photographs.

This book offers new perspectives on Latin American history by tracing continuity and change in important colonial legacies through two hundred years of postcolonial history. Geographically, it includes all the countries in the Western Hemisphere that Spain and Portugal colonized, from the U.S.Mexico border to the southern tip of South America plus Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. As it is customary to consider the former French colony of Haiti, which was originally Spanish, as part of Latin America, it is covered as well. Chronologically, the book begins with background to the initial contact between Spaniards and Native Americans in 1492 and then examines the three-plus centuries of European colonial rule. Its primary focus is the period from 1804, when the first Latin American country secured its independence from European rule, to the present.