Latin America : A Concise Interpretive History

by Burns, Bradford E.; Charlip, Julie A.

• ISBN13: 9780130195760
• ISBN10: 0130195766
• Edition: 8th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2007-01-01
• Publisher: Prentice Hall

Summary

For courses in Modern Latin America. This landmark volume of Latin American history weaves the history of an entire region into a coherent story that emphasizes both common themes and regional and national specificity. This unique narrative provides an interpretive history of Modern Latin America with a focus on the central dynamic of Latin American historythe enigma of poor people inhabiting rich lands. The Seventh Edition has been updated and modernized to reflect recent research, interpretations, and developments.

Table of Contents

Preface	xv
Acknowledgments	xvii
The Origins of a Multiracial Society	1	(28)
The Land	1	(5)
The Indian	6	(5)
The European	11	(3)
Confrontation and Conquest	14	(8)
The African	22	(4)
Documents:
Aztecs Lament the Fall of Tenochtitlan	26	(1)
Cortes is Awed by Tenochtitlan	26	(2)
Equiano: A Slave En Route to the New World	28	(1)
The Institutions of Empire	29	(32)
Economy	30	(9)
Government	39	(8)
The Church	47	(4)
Society and Culture	51	(2)
Cracks in the Empire	53	(4)
Documents:
An Early Feminist Statement	57	(1)
An Indian Cabildo Writes to the Crown, 1554	58	(3)
Independence	61	(23)
A Changing Mentality Begets New Attitudes and Action	62	(6)
The Slaves Declare Haiti's Independence	68	(2)
An Unsuccessful Popular Revolution in Mexico	70	(2)
Elitist Revolts	72	(5)
Documents:
Micaela Bastidas Puyucahua Advises
Her Husband, Tupac Amaru	77	(2)
The Jamaica Letter	79	(5)
Simon Bolivar
New Nations	84	(47)
The Transfer and Legitimization of Power	85	(6)
The Tense Societies	91	(8)
Economic Stagnation	99	(8)
A Lingering Legacy of the Enlightenment	107	(5)
Caudillos	112	(11)
Documents:
Civilization and Barbarism	123	(5)
Domingo F. Sarmiento
El Gaucho Martin Fierro	128	(3)
The Emergence of the Modern State	131	(38)
Political Stability	132	(4)
Positivism and Progress	136	(5)
Economic Prosperity	141	(4)
Modest Industrialization	145	(2)
Progress on the Periphery	147	(2)
The Growth of Cities	149	(5)
Continuity and Change	154	(2)
The Popular Challenge	156	(7)
Documents:
The Mexican Constitution of 1857	163	(1)
In Support of Porfirio Diaz	163	(4)
A Chilean Offers a Different Vision	167	(2)
New Actors on an Old Stage	169	(30)
The Presence of the United States	170	(9)
The Middle Sectors Emerge	179	(3)
The Middle Class in Politics	182	(6)
The Middle Sectors and Feminism	188	(6)
Documents:
Our America	194	(3)
Jose Marti
Ode to Roosevelt	197	(2)
The Past Challenged	199	(27)
Mexico's Violent Response to the Past	200	(11)
Nationalism as a Force for Change	211	(5)
Changing Racial Attitudes	216	(6)
Documents:
The Plan of Ayala	222	(1)
Carlos Fuentes on the Revolution	223	(3)
From World Wars to Cold War	226	(29)
Economic Crises	227	(3)
Dictators and Populists	230	(6)
Latin America Turns Inward	236	(5)
A Flirtation with Democracy	241	(6)
Documents:
A Different Feminism?	247	(5)
Evita
The Periphery v. the Center	252	(3)
Raul Prebisch
The Revolutionary Option	255	(31)
Cuba	258	(9)
Cuba's Impact	267	(5)
Chile	272	(2)
Nicaragua	274	(7)
Documents:
A Nicaraguan Revolutionary Poet	281	(1)
Leonel Rugama
Cuba's Poet Laureate	282	(2)
Nicolas Guillen
Liberation Theology: A Voice for the Poor	284	(2)
Modern Problems	286	(27)
New Economic Patterns	287	(2)
Military Models for Change	289	(7)
War in Central America	296	(7)
Do Elections Make Democracies?	303	(5)
Documents:
Reasons for War	308	(1)
Manuel Jose Arce
Never Again: Reports on Torturers in Argentina, Brazil, and Guatemala	309	(4)
The Enigma Remains	313	(21)
Neoliberalism: The Return of an Old Model	314	(2)
A New Kind of Revolution	316	(2)
The Post-Cold War United States	318	(4)
The Environmental Cost	322	(2)
The Enigma Remains	324	(5)
Documents:
Zapatistas: A New Voice from the Lacandon Jungle	329	(3)
A Poet for the Millennium	332	(2)
A Chronology of Significant Dates in Latin American History	334	(6)
Statistics on the Nations of Latin America	340	(3)
A Glossary of Spanish and Portuguese Terms	343	(4)
A Glossary of Concepts and Terms	347	(6)
The Novel as History: A Reading Guide	353	(9)
Index	362

Excerpts

I was fortunate to have the opportunity to train with E. Bradford Burns at the University of California, Los Angeles. I was among the last of his graduate students: He signed my dissertation in August 1995 and died that December. I have missed him terribly, especially as I have taught this text and wished that we could continue our long talks and often heated debates about Latin America. Prentice Hall's invitation to revise the book was simultaneously flattering and daunting. It is an honor to try to carry on the Burns tradition, but it also seems presumptuous to rewrite one's mentor. I was aided in the task, however, by Professor Burns's own sage advice to me years ago: "It is the job of each generation of scholars to revise the previous generation." I am taking him at his word. This book remains a landmark in the teaching of Latin American history. It is a narrative that weaves the history of an entire region into a coherent story that emphasizes both common themes and regional and national specificity; it thus breaks away from the old tradition of marching through the separate stories of various countries in the region. Most importantly, the narrative is grounded in Professor Burns's sharp, succinct analysis of the central dynamic of Latin American history: the enigma of "poor people inhabiting rich-lands" because the region's elites have "tended to confuse their own well-being and desires with those of the nation at large." I find that analysis to be as on target today as it was in 1972, when the first edition of this text was published. When it first appeared, the textbook also was the first to adopt the perspective of dependency theory, which came to dominate the debate about Latin American development until the 1990s. It has become quite fashionable at the end of the millennium to dismiss the dependency school, laughing at its naivete. But as Robert A. Packenham argues inThe Dependency Movement: Scholarship and Politics in Development Studies,"reports of the death of the dependency movement are premature." Packenham describes the 1991 World Congress of the International Political Science Association meeting in Buenos Aires, at which dependency authors restated their supposedly dated views to enthusiastic applause and even a standing ovation. Indeed, it can be argued that Latin America is more dependent than ever before. There have been many critiques of dependency theory, from within the wide-ranging dependentista camp itself, between classical Marxists and dependentistas, and between modernization advocates and dependency theorists. Some of the more simplistic versions of dependency theory did seem to reduce Latin American relations to an "us" and "them" dynamic, ignoring the role of Latin American elites. At times the elites were seen as mere lackeys of the developed countries, rather than a dominant class with its own agenda within Latin America. Dependency theorists who predicted that no real change could take place within the structure of Latin American economies were confronted by examples such as Brazil, which combined the state, the private sector, and foreign interests in an extensive process of industrialization and changed from a primary-product exporter to a regional power in manufacturing. Some dependentistas, Burns among them, advocated a virtual withdrawal from the world market and a return to a more simple life, in which domestic goods would suffice. Many of those debates do indeed seem outmoded today. Certainly solutions that called for near autarky seem unrealistic amid today's relentless onslaught of globalization. Nonetheless, the basic description provided by dependency theory still holds true: The mere equation of growth with development is erroneous. The rise in gross national product, if it is not redistributed, benefits only a tiny percentage of the population. Latin America still suffers from the world's most inequitable distribution of wealth, a condition that