Overview of Historiography of Latin American History

Chasteen, John Charles. Americanos: Latin Americas Struggle for Independence. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2008.
Fast-paced, dramatic account of the events of Latin American independence by a historian adept at blending
scholarship with storytelling. Chasteen focuses on the creation of a new sense of American-ness and emphasizes
heroic personalities.

Costeloe, Michael P. Response to Revolution: Imperial Spain and the Spanish American Revolutions, 1810
1840. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Finds that the Spanish public was more concerned with events closer to home than with the disintegration of the
larger empire. Focused mainly on the period after 1814, the book treats the various plans for military counterattacks,
the rollback of constitutional concessions previously made by the Regency, the state of the press and public opinion,
and the financing of the imperial system in its final years.

Kinsbruner, Jay. Independence in Spanish America: Civil Wars, Revolutions and Underdevelopment.
Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1994.
Brief, readable history of independence that casts it as an anticolonial struggle that descended into intensely partisan
civil wars. Integration of the new states into a global capitalist economy has meant that Latin America is caught in a
cycle of failed leadership, predatory elites, internal rebellions, and underdeveloped economies.

Langley, Lester D. The Americas in the Age of Revolution, 17501850. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale
University Press, 1996.
Historian of US foreign policy in Latin America draws connections among the American Revolution, the Haitian
Revolution, and the Spanish American independence movements. Places emphasis on the colonial dynamic, race
relations, counterrevolution, leadership styles, and the militarization of society to explain the different trajectories and
outcomes of the three interrelated events.

Lynch, John. The Spanish American Revolutions, 18081826. 2d rev. ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1986.
The standard English-language account of independence since it first appeared in 1973, revised and updated. Offers
a narrative overview of the continental process through a series of chapters organized chronologically, with a focus
on various national theaters at the center of the broad sweep of events at a particular moment.

Rodrguez O., Jaime E. The Independence of Spanish America. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press,
1998.
A vigorous interpretation of Spanish American independence that undercuts the traditional view of independence as a
series of grand battles led by national heroes. Was at the forefront of the new historiographical trend toward viewing
popular participation, representative government, and cultural continuity as the major characteristics of the eras
events. Emphasizes independence as a process fully grounded in the notion of liberty and freedom in which people of
all races and classes participated.

Voss, Stuart F. Latin America in the Middle Period: 17501929. Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources, 2002.
Follows a historiographical trend that has become common in the writing of revolutionary history elsewhere to take
a longue dure (long-term) approach to the study of a revolutionary event by emphasizing its continuity rather than
the abruptness of a dramatic break. Highly readable overview balances the high politics of the era with a significant
number of examples of slower shifts in the cultural, economic, and social life of the populace.

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