Latin America: Recommended Reading

vivalatinamerica:

I have provided free PDFs for some of these readings in English and in Spanish when possible. Otherwise, click the title if you are interested in buying it. Don’t forget to check with your local libraries if they have these readings in their database!

Latin American History:

• The Open Veins of Latin America by Eduardo Galeano (PDF in English/PDF en español) –

  This text portrays the various facets of Latin American history according to the perspective of five centuries of exploitation and imperialism.

• Latin America: A Concise Interpretive History by E. Bradford Burns and Julie A. Charlip (PDF in English) – This volume of Latin American history incorporates the history of Latin America and an interpretive history of Modern Latin America with a focus on the central dynamic of Latin American history.

• Human Rights in Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua: A Sociological Perspective on Human Rights Abuse by Mayra Gómez – A historical perspective on human rights abuse in Cuba, El Salvador, and Nicaragua from the late 1960s to the present day.
• Banana Wars: Power, Production, and History in the Americas by Steve Striffler and Mark Moberg (PDF in English) – A history of the Americas as told through the cultural, political, economic, and
  agricultural processes that brought bananas from the forests of Latin America and the Caribbean to United States and Europe.

U.S. Policy in Latin America:

• When States Kill: Latin America, the U.S., and Technologies of Terror by Cecilia Menjívar and Néstor Rodriguez – Organized by region, the essays in this book address state-sponsored terrorism. Most take the perspective that state-directed political violence is a modern development of a regional political structure in of U.S. political interests, others acknowledge that Latin American states enthusiastically received U.S. support for their campaigns of terror. All the essays exemplify how technologies of terror have been transferred among various Latin American countries, with particular attention to the role that the United States has played in such transfers.
• Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion by Gary Webb – A series of investigations concerning a drug case that uncovered the conspiracy involving the Nicaraguan Contra Rebels, crack cocaine dealers in the U.S., and the Central Intelligence Agency.

Latin American Current Affairs:

• The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas by Lesley Gill – Founded in 1946, The School of the Americas (soa) is a U.S. Army center that has trained more than sixty thousand soldiers and police, mostly from Latin America, in counterinsurgency and The school is associated with the participation of the School’s graduates in torture, murder, and political repression throughout Latin America. Lesley Gill goes behind the façade and presents a comprehensive portrait of the School of the Americas.
• Neither Enemies nor Friends – Latinos, Blacks, Afro-Latinos by Anani Dzidzienyo and Suzanne Oboler –  Leading scholars focus on the contemporary meanings and diverse experiences of blackness in specific countries of the hemisphere. The anthology introduces new perspectives on comparative forms of racialization in the Americas and presents its implications both for Latin American societies, and for Latinos’ relations with African Americans in the U.S.
• Latin American Popular Culture Since Independence: An Introduction by William Beezley and Linda Curcio-Nagy – A collection of essays that highlight the diversity of Latin America’s culture from independence to the present. Drawing on a rich array of case studies, this text introduces the complexity of motives behind and the diversity of expression of popular culture in Latin America.
• A Massacre in Mexico: The True Story Behind the Missing Forty-Three Students by Anabel Hernández – A definitive account by investigative reporter Anabel Hernández of the disappearances of the forty-three Mexican students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher’s College that disappeared on September 26, 2014.

Indigenous People in the Americas:

• From Tribal Village to Global Village: Indian Rights in International Relations in Latin America by Alison Brysk –

  This book tells the story of the unexpected impact of the Indian rights movement on world politics, from reforming the United Nations to evicting oil companies. Based on case studies from Ecuador, Mexico, Brazil, Nicaragua, and Bolivia, this book analyzes the implications of these human rights experiences for all of Latin America’s 40 million indigenous citizens, and the 300 million native people throughout the world.

• Transcending Conquest: Nahua Views of Spanish Colonial Mexico by Stephanie Wood – A book of Nahuatl writings and illustrations that reveal Nahua perspectives on Spanish colonial occupation of the Americas.
• Indigenous Movements and Their Critics: Pan-Maya Activism in Guatemala by Kay B. Warren – The book focuses on Guatemala’s peace processe (1987-1996) and highlights the role that Mayan intellectuals played in their democracy in Guatemala and in creating a new middle class.

Globalization in Latin America:

• The Free Trade Agreement between the United States and Central America: Economic and Social Impacts by Raúl Moreno – The myths and truths about the Free Trade Agreement and the social and economic impacts of the agreement in Central America. 
• Trouble in Paradise: Globalization and Environmental Crises in Latin America by J. Timmons Roberts (PDF in English) – The Latin American environmental crises and the environmental issues caused by globalization and neo-liberal processes.
• Confronting Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in Mexico by Timothy A. Wise – Written by a team of U.S. and Mexican collaborators, the book illustrates how Mexican communities cope with the impacts of the North American Free Trade Agreement by highlighting the importance of trade regulations on poor communities worldwide.

U.S.-Mexico Border:

• The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border by Francisco Cantú – The account of a former U.S. Border Patrol agent, his experiences with the dehumanization of migrants, and his struggles with types of violence on both sides of the border.

• Continental Crossroads: Remapping U.S.-Mexico Borderlands History by Samuel Truett and Elliott Young (PDF in English) – Chronicles of the transnational processes that bound Mexico and the U.S. together through the formative history of the borderlands.

• The Children of NAFTA: Labor Wars on the U.S./Mexico Border by David Bacon – Firsthand accounts from Mexican workers and their labor struggles in fields and factories along the U.S-Mexico border since the signing of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Latin American Literature:

• One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (PDF in English/PDF en español) –  A novel that tells the story of the rise and fall, birth and death of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendia family.
• The Book of Lamentations by Rosario Castellanos – A novel of a Mayan uprising that takes places in Chiapas, Mexico, in 1712, 1868, and the 1930s, and combines historical events with modern times.
• The Weight of All Things by Sandra Benitez – A novel that takes places in El Salvador during the civil war of the 1980s, it tells the story of a nine-year-old narrating the trauma of war.
• The Story of Colors/La Historia de los Colores by Subcomandante Marcos and Domitilia Domínguez – 

  A bilingual folktale reveals some wisdom of the indigenous peoples of Chiapas while also providing a perspective on the struggles of the people there as they fight to conserve their culture.

• The Tree of Life: Stories of Civil War by Mario Bencastro – A collection of short stories about the passion and politics of civil war in El Salvador from the perspectives of everyday people.