A guide to Latin American history includes a chronology of key events from pre-Columbian history through the present, a thematic survey following each topic (economic change, cultural development, politics and government) across time, and 300 biographies of Latin Americans throughout history.

Each chapter features a timeline of events in the history of U.S. involvement in that country and a list of suggested readings on the country and its relationship with the U.S. A glossary explains key terms used throughout the book. Comparative tables and charts put inter-American relations in perspective. A selection of editorial cartoons from the 1980s offers biting commentary on U.S. relations with its Latin American neighbors. Designed to meet the information needs of high school and college students and the general public, this reference work provides both historical perspective and timely analysis of current problems confronting the U.S. and its neighbors to the south.

Now in a larger format and fully revised, with new maps and photographs, this new edition of The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Latin America and the Caribbean remains the essential reference for anyone concerned with the region. Copiously illustrated, lucidly written, and comprehensive in its coverage, the Encyclopedia has been developed for the general reader by an international team of seventy scholars. Structured in six parts, it explores the regional trends and general trends that will provide nonspecialists with the necessary overview. The Encyclopedia examines both urgent contemporary issues such as economic and population growth, trade and international debt, tourism and the environment, and the longer term factors that have molded Latin America as we find it today: the native flora and fauna, the emergence of early civilizations in Mexico and Peru, imperial domination over three centuries by Spain and Portugal, the struggle for independence in the nineteenth century, and then the political turbulence of the twentieth. Coverage is provided of music and literature, architecture, painting, and intellectual life, for this is equally the region of the tango and the samba, Borges and Neruda, García Márquez and Diego Rivera, Villa Lobos and Bob Marley.

"The essays and entries in this book will allow us to see how history, politics, gender, race and class all affect the lives and practices of everyday citizens in Latin America and the Caribbean"--Provided by publisher.