Encyclopaedia Britannica - Ancient civilizations-2

William B. Taylor, Magistrates of the Sacred: Priests and Parishioners in Eighteenth-Century Mexico (1996), studies the role of parish priests in New Spain.

Brazil

Alexander Marchant, From Barter to Slavery: The Economic Relations of Portuguese and Indians in the Settlement of Brazil, 1500–1580 (1942, reissued 1966), though badly outdated in its ethnohistorical aspect, shows typical European economic procedures in a fringe area. C.R. Boxer, The Dutch in Brazil, 1624–1654 (1957, reprinted 1973), and The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695–1750 (1962, reissued 1995), extract a maximum of social, economic, and general information from institutional-narrative materials. Gilberto Freyre, The Masters and the Slaves (Casa-Grande & Senzala): A Study in the Development of Brazilian Civilization, 2nd ed., rev. (1946, reissued 1986; originally published in Portuguese, 4th ed., 2 vol., 1943), concerns the society of northeastern Brazil in the time of sugar production; most scholars today can credit very little of it, but it is read because it changed the direction of Brazilian historiography. A.J.R. Russell-Wood, Fidalgos and Philanthropists: The Santa Casada Misericórdia of Bahia, 1550–1755 (1968), though nominally institutional, is tantamount to a study of northeastern urban society and partly updates Freyre. Stuart B. Schwartz, Sovereignty and Society in Colonial Brazil: The High Court of Bahia and Its Judges, 1609–1751 (1973), combines social and institutional approaches, and his Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society: Bahia, 1550–1835 (1985), embraces many methods, materials, and topics. Dauril Alden, Royal Government in Colonial Brazil, with Special Reference to the Administration of the Marquis of Lavradio, Viceroy, 1769–1779 (1968), is broader than its title implies, dealing also with demographic and economic matters. Alida C. Metcalf, Family and Frontier in Colonial Brazil: Santana de Parnaíba, 1580–1822 (1992), illuminates fringe-area society.

Independence to 1910

General works

David Bushnell and Neill Macauly, The Emergence of Latin America in the Nineteenth Century, 2nd ed. (1994), focuses particularly on politics in the middle decades of the century. E. Bradford Burns, The Poverty of Progress: Latin America in the Nineteenth Century (1980), creatively argues that modernization hurt the majority of Latin Americans.

Spanish America

John Tutino, From Insurrection to Revolution in Mexico: Social Bases of Agrarian Violence, 1750–1940 (1986), reviews rural rebels’ motives from the wars preceding independence to those of the Mexican Revolution. John Lynch, The Spanish American Revolutions, 1808–1826, 2nd ed. (1986), is the best account of the political and military events of the wars for independence. Kenneth J. Andrien and Lyman L. Johnson (eds.), The Political Economy of Spanish America in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1850 (1994), compiles essays on economic aspects of the transition to independence. Verena Martinez-Alier (Verena Stolcke), Marriage, Class, and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba: A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society, 2nd ed. (1989), links race, gender, and class factors. Rebecca J. Scott, Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860–1899 (1985), portrays the abolition of slavery in Cuba as the result of social, political, and economic factors. Paul Gootenberg, Between Silver and Guano: Commercial Policy and the State in Postindependence Peru (1989), examines the complicated social contests through which integration into global economic relations emerged after independence. Jonathan C. Brown, A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776–1860 (1979), challenges assumptions about Latin America’s economic dependence on North Atlantic powers. Florencia E. Mallon, The Defense of Community in Peru’s Central Highlands: Peasant Struggle and Capitalist Transition, 1860–1940 (1983), details the social and political aspects of a period of economic overhaul. Charles A. Hale, Mexican Liberalism in the Age of Mora, 1821–1853 (1968), provides a model of intellectual history. John Charles Chasteen, Heroes on Horseback: A Life and Times of the Last Gaucho Caudillos (1995), is an exciting, highly readable study of two caudillo brothers and their divergent legacies in Brazil and Uruguay. Robert H. Jackson (ed.), Liberals, the Church, and Indian Peasants: Corporate Lands and the Challenge of Reform in Nineteenth-Century Spanish America (1997), explores control and land-use reforms after independence.

Brazil

Emília Viotti da Costa, The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories (1985; originally published in Portuguese, 1977), collects well-written essays on liberalism, slavery, the end of the empire, and other major topics. C.H. Haring, Empire in Brazil: A New World Experiment with Monarchy (1958, reissued 1968), is a somewhat dated but still useful political history. Warren Dean, Rio Claro: A Brazilian Plantation System, 1820–1920 (1976), examines changing labour arrangements during the growth and demise of slavery. João José Reis, Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia (1993; originally published in Portuguese, 1986), weighs African cultural contributions and other factors in analyzing one of the century’s most influential revolts. Stanley J. Stein, Vassouras: A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850–1900: The Roles of Planter and Slave in a Plantation Society (1985), studies the rise and decline of a traditional coffee zone. Linda Lewin, Politics and Parentela in Paraíba: A Case Study of Family-Based Oligarchy in Brazil (1987), analyzes in detail the patronage system that defined politics in late 19th- and early 20th-century Brazil; and Richard Graham, Patronage and Politics in Nineteenth-Century Brazil (1990), does the same, specifically for the empire period. Joseph L. Love, Rio Grande do Sul and Brazilian Regionalism, 1882–1930 (1971), presents a strong regional history of politics. Thomas H. Holloway, Immigrants on the Land: Coffee and Society in São Paulo, 1886–1934 (1980), analyzes how two million European immigrants worked and lived.

Twentieth-century Latin America

General works

Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith, Modern Latin America, 4th ed. (1997); and Peter Calvert and Susan Calvert, Latin America in the Twentieth Century, 2nd ed. (1993), are good introductions to the period.

Political developments

Now somewhat dated in interpretation but extremely influential when it appeared is John J. Johnson, Political Change in Latin America: The Emergence of the Middle Sectors (1958, reissued 1965). Treatments of political topics that cross national boundaries include A.E. Van Niekerk, Populism and Political Development in Latin America (1974; originally published in Dutch, 1972); Edward J. Williams, Latin American Christian Democratic Parties (1967); and John A. Peeler, Latin American Democracies: Colombia, Costa Rica, Venezuela (1985), assessing variants of liberal democracy. The impact of the Cuban Revolution and associated leftist currents is explored in Jorge G. Castañeda, Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War (1993), by a frustrated sympathizer; and William E. Ratliff, Castroism and Communism in Latin America, 1959–1976: The Varieties of Marxist-Leninist Experience (1976), a conservative perspective. Frederick M. Nunn, The Time of the Generals: Latin American Professional Militarism in World Perspective (1992); and J. Samuel Fitch, The Armed Forces and Democracy in Latin America (1998), discuss the political

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