Raza y política en Hispanoamérica

Race is not merely an important part of politics in Latin America; it is foundational of politics itself. This is the central argument presented by Tomás Pérez Vejo and Pablo Yankelevich in their introduction to this exceptional collection of original historical essays on race, nation, and politics in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America. The volume does not offer a singular narrative of how race constitutes and is constituted by politics in the region. Rather, the stated aim of Raza y política en Hispanoamérica is “to contribute to understanding the multiple strands of the relationships between race and politics in el espacio hispanoamericano” as part of ongoing debates that seek “to understand and explain the complexity of the processes of nation making” in the region (pp. 12, 15). The editors succeed in this aim. The ten original chapters that comprise the volume offer thematically linked but empirically discrete analyses of the...