For twenty years, Problems in Modern Latin American History has been of inestimable value to undergraduates and their instructors. James A. Wood has made the new edition fully his own, incorporating new areas of interest into the volume’s wide-ranging thematic coverage and updating the text for a new generation of students. Among the notable results is that Problems, entering its third decade, remains as vital a resource as it was at the dawn of its first.
Problems in Modern Latin American History provides a delightfully diverse collection of primary sources mixed with scholarly analyses. This potent combination offers an ideal means of instructing students in historical interpretation and historiographical criticism. James Wood helps instructors and their students focus on vital selected problems, thus avoiding the usual pedestrian compilation of factoids. Students can explore a range of often-conflicting views of important problems and gain experience in constructing and critiquing historical interpretations, not regurgitating minutiae. My students have responded with high-level critical thinking, because the readings challenge rather than bore. I've used the book since the first edition with excellent results in both classroom and online courses.
A compelling, diverse mix of primary sources and scholarly works, this edition of Problems in Modern Latin American History is sure to critically engage and interest students. With its broad coverage of important issues and themes—accompanied by provocative discussion questions— this volume encourages students to actively make critical connections between the past and present in Latin America. Anna Alexander and James A. Wood have masterfully updated a classic, crucial resource for students and teachers of Latin American history.
This book is the perfect classroom tool for undergraduates and beginning graduate students alike. Each chapter intersperses primary documents with scholarly analyses that provide rich context for the different periods, nations, and themes covered. Scholars of Latin American history, politics, culture, gender, and ethnicity will find this collection to be an excellent resource for guiding students through the past two hundred years in this complex region.
This impressive new edition continues the tradition of seamlessly blending primary sources with secondary analyses from a variety of leading historians. The diverse new documents, images, and topics in the fifth edition make it an ideal learning tool for today’s classroom. Wood and Alexander's concise section introductions orient readers, then invite them to integrate and interrogate multiple perspectives as they form their own evidence-based answers to some of the most pressing questions in the field of modern Latin American history.
No other reader presents two hundred years of Latin American thought and action in such convenient format. The text selection allows students to gain access to a variety of voices, ranging from the most influential political leaders to fiction writers, historians, and, crucially, people from the margins. Latin American reality evolves so quickly that this five-year update of Problems in Modern Latin America is both amply justified and warmly welcomed.
PRAISE FOR EARLIER EDITIONS
At last a 'problems' book that is utterly readable and as attentive to race and culture as to political and economic issues! Students will appreciate the volume's sensible mix of documents and secondary literature (including a series of lively historiographic debates), its use of visual imagery, and the provocative discussion questions that accompany each chapter. A worthy successor to earlier editions.
No other reader presents two hundred years of Latin American thought and action in such convenient format. The text selection allows students to gain access to a variety of voices, ranging from the most influential political leaders to fiction writers, historians, and, crucially, people from the margins. Latin American reality evolves so quickly that this five-year update of Problems in Modern Latin America is both amply justified and warmly welcomed.
PRAISE FOR EARLIER EDITIONS
Chasteen and Wood's superb edited work is a welcome addition to resource materials on Latin American history. The careful mixture of primary and secondary documents helps students to understand key issues as well as the evolution of historical analysis. Interesting and provocative units lend themselves to short reaction papers based on central themes and concepts.
PRAISE FOR EARLIER EDITIONS
Problems in Modern Latin American History is an exciting collection of primary and secondary texts and images. The thirteen thematic headings offer multiple perspectives on a wide range of controversies in modern history. This volume not only covers a lot of ground and a long period of time but it also provides a critique of historiography by including earlier summaries as well as recent perspectives.
PRAISE FROM EARLIER EDITIONS
A classic supplement to our basic introductions to Latin American history now updated with fresh materials, some original documents, and some interpretations. This text is a nice mix for students' first exposure to Latin America. Crafted with skill and experience to optimize the use of the "problems" approach for students, this new edition easily continues to be an indispensable tool for teachers and a wonderful source of insight for students.
PRAISE FOR EARLIER EDITIONS
John Chasteen and James A. Wood provide a broad selection of classic essays focused on numerous significant issues that any instructor would want to address in Latin American history. Their coverage also includes such timely contemporary issues as women and social change and globalization. The strength of this collection lies in a combination of insightful interpretations by leading academics and intellectuals North and South as well as in the moving voices of Latin American actors themselves.
