Really good, provides overview then goes state by state, and then a generalized outtro. Really love the breadth and depth of this book. Though you may need to wikipedia some of the political stuff!

Heavy, although it seems some more unpleasant things were glossed over. Bah.

Interesting and a well written history of the rise of Latin America in the modern world.

Skidmore is a great story teller and historian and clearly knows his subject. Well presented, engaging and well written. A great read for anyone trying to unwind the current political complexities in Latin America. I'd love an update to bring it fully up to current events!

This is a good textbook for Latin American studies. It provides a broad overview of Latin American history and society, albeit in an unorthodox fashion. Rather than dividing each nation by chronological order, it uses several nations and their history as models for the region.

This is a great, simple view of Latin American history, how Latin America got to where it is today.

Terribly dry. Entirely too much economics. Dated and boring. I couldn't even get trough the whole thing. Sleep inducing.

This book is clearly written and provides a decent introduction to South and Central America, and the Caribbean islands. However, it quickly becomes repetitive because each chapter is constructed almost identically, so that it is almost as if all of the chapters after Chapter 2 are simply fill-in-the-blank repeats of the earlier ones. For an introduction, I also think the authors worry about details (going through every leader and election, for instance), when they should be pointing out trends and patterns. I also think the last full chapter, discussing the interactions of Latin America and the rest of the world, would have been better placed near the beginning.

The other issue I have with this book is that, in certain chapters, the ideology of the authors interferes with their ability to narrate history. I have no objection to a detailed discussion of the negative affects of U.S. interventionism over the last century - any discussion of Latin America has to give a great deal of space to the way successive U.S. administrations have interfered, often in very destructive ways, in Latin America. However, the authors seem to think that U.S. interference accounts for virtually every problem faced by these nations, and therefore don't give enough time to discussing internal difficulties. This is blazingly apparent in the chapter on Cuba, where there is virtually no discussion of the repressive nature of Castro's government. As a result, I felt I didn't get much of an understanding of the internal problems that helped create the catastrophic situations in many Latin American countries, or how they might be solved.

Pretty general but informative and well done. The best general introductory text on LatAm you will find. There's breakdowns by country as well as regional themes.History is hard to write well and this book was not boring. Thomas Skidmore is the foremost historian of Brazil writing in english and this book doesn't disappoint. I love you Thomas.

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I figured it was in my best interest to get a good comprehensive birds-eye view of this part of the world. This was a great book and thoroughly covered the economic, political, and social histories of latin american countries. Through no fault of the writers, at time I felt like I was reading the same old story over and over again since so many latin american countries have shared 1) single export economies 2) struggles for power and land between rich landowners and landless peasants 3) fluctuating attitudes between wanting foreign investment and rejecting it 4) fluctuating attitudes toward the US 5) strong military regimes that intervene to overthrow presidents at will 6) struggles between marxist-left and neo-conservative economics and 7) the constant issue of land reform. Wow, what a history.

Textbook for my Latin American History class. I learned quite a bit from reading this book, it makes me wish I had bought it instead of renting it. If you are interested in a great overview of the various Latin American countries and their history I highly suggest this book.