Latin America since Independence

by Thomas C. Wright, Robert L. Smale

2022 · Bloomsbury Publishing PLC

This book offers an innovative, thematic approach to the history of Latin America since independence. It traces continuity and change in colonial legacies that became central political issues following independence: authoritarian governance; a rigid social hierarchy based on race, color, and gender; the powerful Roman Catholic Church; economic dependency; and the large landed estate. Generally, liberals have sought to modify or abolish these legacies in the interest of what they consider progress, while conservatives have attempted to preserve them as much as possible as bastions of their power and privilege. Examining the evolution of these colonial legacies across two centuries reveals the processes that formed the political systems, economies, societies, and religious institutions that characterize Latin America today.

Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization

by Thomas David Schoonover

2003 · University Press of Kentucky

"Schoonover locates the origins of American globalization and expansionism in the Spanish-American War. American involvement in the War of 1898, he argues, reflects many of the fundamental patterns of our national history - exploration and discovery, labor exploitation, violence, racism, class conflict, and concern for security - that have shaped America's course since the nineteenth century. Uncle Sam's War of 1898 and the Origins of Globalization is the first work to identify the source of the United States' economic, political, and social policies abroad - and the actions that established it as the only remaining superpower."--BOOK JACKET.