Despite the great diversity of experience in the countries that together make up Latin America, there exists, among its students, a great desire to understand the region as a whole. This is especially true when it comes to questions of national and economic development and the social controversies of the twentieth century. Rosemary Thorp’s survey of the economic and social history of Latin America offers a welcome integration of the current state of knowledge of diverse national experiences into a sweeping account of the great forces of economic change over the past century. Necessarily, the author has left many favorite topics untouched; yet the conciseness and breathtaking pace are to the author’s credit, for with broad strokes, Thorp has painted a picture with remarkable insight and selectivity.

The author’s profound experience as a scholar of Latin American economic history was supported by a select team of scholar-consultants, commissioned by the...

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