Faces of Latin America

by Duncan Green

ISBN-10: 1899365109

Paperback, 1st November 2006 (Third Edition).

Price: £13.99

An extensively updated and enlarged edition of the bestselling introduction to the region. Faces of Latin America celebrates the vibrant culture of Latin America's people and looks at some of the key actors in the region's turbulent politics - the military, Indians, grassroots protest groups, guerrillas, the radical Church and the women's movement.

Faces of Latin America also traces the roots of the region's underdevelopment and poverty, with a new chapter on the role of the state, as well as sections on life in the city and the countryside, and Latin America's recent conversion to the virtues of the market economy.

Listen to an audio Interview with Duncan Green:

Chapter breakdown

1. The Curse of Wealth: The History of the Commodity Trade. The boom-bust cycles of raw material exports such as sugar, gold and, most recently, cocaine that have shaped Latin America's history since the Conquest.
2. Promised Land: Land Ownership, Power and Conflict. The history of unequal land distribution and inefficient use. Land conflicts and land reform.
3. A Land in Flames: Environment. Deforestation. Sustainable development. Pesticides. Mega-projects; transnational companies. Urban pollution.
4. Mean Streets: Migration and Life in the City. Rural-urban migration. Portrait of a migrant. Life in the shanty towns. The informal sector.
5. Growing Pains: Industrialisation, the Debt Crisis and Structural Adjustment. Import substitution and industrialisation. Transnational companies. The debt crisis. The rise of neoliberalism.
6. Writing on the Wall: Culture, Identity and Politics. Popular culture and the fusion of indigenous, African and European traditions. Popular culture and Politics. Twentieth century mass media. Impact of the Cuban revolution.
7. The State and Politics: Twin authoritarian and democratic traditions. The figure of the caudillo. Populism and dictatorship in the 20th century. Military rule and democratisation in the 1980s. Impact of the debt crisis.
8. Men at Arms: The Military Involvement in politics and National Security Doctrine; military as institution. What makes the military withdraw from power? Continued influence under elected governments. Impact of the end of the Cold War.
9. The Left: Guerrillas and Social Movements after the Cold War. Urban and rural guerrilla movements. Social movements, the role of women and the search for a new democratic politics.
10. Women's Work: Gender and Politics. Machismo. Fertility and the family. Women at work. Political involvement: conventional politics and social movements.
11. Race Against Time: Indigenous peoples. Highland and lowland Indians - lifestyles, involvement in society; resistance to integration/extermination. Other ethnic groups.
12. Thy Kingdom Come: The Church. The traditional Catholic Church versus liberation theology; life in the Base Christian Communities. The rise of the protestant evangelical churches.

What reviewers say about Faces of Latin America

"A journalistic tour de force with academic worth... Recommended as essential background reading for many an undergraduate course in the Latin American studies area." Bulletin of Hispanic Studies

"Green has achieved that very rare feat: to encapsulate the extraordinary complexities and contradictions of that strange, often ignored continent in little more than 200 attractively illustrated pages. I cannot recommend it highly enough." Irish Times

"A definitive work of investigation. An indispensable introduction and source of reference, and a sound debunking of almost every previous misconception about the region." New Statesman and Society

"The first introductory text that captures the economic, political and cultural ferment of contemporary Latin America." Wisconsin Bookwatch

"A sparky and elegant primer. Far and away the best overall introduction to the subject." History Workshop Journal

"The best introductory book going on Latin America. An invaluable resource." International Affairs

About the author

Duncan Green is author of Hidden Lives: Voices of Children in Latin America and the Caribbean (Cassell/Latin America Bureau, 1998); Silent Revolution: the Rise of Market Economics in Latin America (Cassell/Latin America Bureau, 1995), Guatemala: Burden of Paradise (Latin America Bureau/AAG 1992). His writing on Latin America has been published in The Guardian, International Herald Tribune, and New Internationalist.

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