Eakin Marshall C. Livres

This narrative history of Latin America surveys five centuries in less than five hundred pages.  The first third of the book moves from the Americas before Columbus to the wars for independence in the early nineteenth century.  The construction of new nations and peoples in the nineteenth century forms the middle third, and the final section analyzes economic development, rising political participation, and the search of identity over the last century.  The collision of peoples and cultures--Native Americans, Europeans, Africans--that defines Latin America, and gives it both its unity and diversity, provides the central theme of this concise, synthetic history. 

This book examines how Gilberto Freyre's notion of mesticagem (race mixing) became the overwhelmingly dominant narrative of national identity in twentieth-century Brazil.

What is Latin American History?  surveys the development of this vibrant and dynamic field of study in North America, Latin America, and Europe. After briefly sketching the growth of the topic up to the 1960s, Marshall Eakin focuses on the past half-century, from the dominance of social history to the cultural turn. He surveys innovative work on topics including slavery, indigenous peoples, race, the environment, science, medicine, and gender, and ends with a discussion of the emergence of the concepts of borderlands, the Atlantic world, and transnational history – that both enrich and challenge the very idea of Latin America. This concise volume offers the first broad overview of Latin American history and historiography for students, scholars, and the general reader, outlining the key social, cultural, and political forces that have shaped both Latin America and its study.

'Intelektualna dyscyplina Eakina w połączeniu z jego niezwykle żywym stylem zaowocowała powstaniem historii Ameryki Łacińskiej będącej zarazem świetną lekturą i bogatym źródłem informacji. Studenci z pewnością zechcą rozpoczynać poznawanie dziejów tego fascynującego regionu właśnie od lektury książki Historia Ameryki Łacińskiej. Zderzenie kultur.' Prof. Todd A. Diacon, historyk, Prorektor ds. Naukowych, Uniwersytet Tennessee MARSHALL C. EAKIN jest profesorem na Wydziale Historii Uniwersytetu Vanderbilta oraz prezesem Towarzystwa Studiów Brazylijskich (BRASA). Specjalizuje się w historii Brazylii XIX i XX wieku. Jest autorem książek British Enterprise in Brazil (1989), Brazil: The Once and Future Country (1997) oraz Tropical Capitalism: The Industrialization of Belo Horizonte, Brazil (2001).