Colombia: A Country Study

Like its predecessor, this study is an attempt to treat in a concise and objective manner the dominant historical, social, political, economic, and national security aspects of contemporary Colombia. Sources of information included scholarly journals and monographs, official reports of governments and international organizations, foreign and domestic newspapers, and numerous periodicals and Internet sources, particularly official Colombian government Web sites. Chapter bibliographies appear at the end of the book; at the end of each chapter is a brief comment on some of the more valuable sources suggested as further reading. The Glossary provides supplementary explanations of words and terms used frequently or having particular importance. Measurements are given in the metric system; a conversion table is provided to assist those readers who are unfamiliar with metric measurements (see table 1, Appendix).

Although there are numerous variations, Spanish surnames generally consist of two parts: the patrilineal name followed by the matrilineal. In the instance of Álvaro Uribe Vélez, for example, Uribe is his father’s name and Vélez is his mother’s maiden name. In nonformal use, the matrilineal name is often dropped. Thus, after the first mention in each part of the book, Uribe is sufficient.

The use of foreign words and terms has been confined to those essential to understanding the text, with a brief definition upon first usage and additional treatment in the Glossary. A list of abbreviations and acronyms of Spanish names, with English translations, can be found in table A. The text uses the standard spelling of place-names sanctioned by the United States Board on Geographic Names.

The book’s formal information cutoff date for the chapters is December 31, 2008. Certain parts of the text, however, contain later information, added as it became available since the completion of research. The Introduction provides a general update for 2009 and early 2010.