Tulio Halperin Donghi is Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. John Charles Chasteen
is Assistant Professor of History at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Review
"If Halperin's book owes its interpretive power and revisionist insights to the perspective and ideas of
the economists concerned with the roots of Latin American underdevelopment, it tempers these insights with a historian's
broad view of historical change, a wide familiarity with primary documents, and an unrivaled command over available
secondary sources."
--Charles Berquist, University of Washington, Seattle
"The translation of this classic work is long overdue. Halperin's remarkably skillful at interweaving threads
of social, political, and economic history into a coherent whole in a way very few historians can."
--Deborah Jakubs, Council on Latin American Studies
Submitted by Duke University Press Web Site, August, 2001
Summary
For a quarter of a century, Tulio Halperin Donghi's Historia Contemporanea de America Latina has been the most
influential and widely read general history of Latin America in the Spanish-speaking world. Unparalleled in scope,
attentive to the paradoxes of Latin American reality, and known for its fine-grained interpretation, it is now
available for the first time in English. Revised and updated by the author, superbly translated, this landmark
of Latin American historiography will be accessible to an entirely new readership.
Beginning with a survey of the late colonial landscape, The Contemporary History of Latin America traces the social,
economic, and political development of the region to the late twentieth century, with special emphasis on the period
since 1930. Chapters are organized chronologically, each beginning with a general description of social and economic
developments in Latin America generally, followed by specific attention to political matters in each country. What
emerges is a well-rounded and detailed picture of the forces at work throughout Latin American history
This book will be of great interest to all those seeking a general overview of modern Latin American history, and
its distinctive Latin American voice will enhance its significance for all students of Latin American history.
