Understanding Contemporary Latin America (Understanding the Contemporary World)

This text treats the crucial issues facing Latin America in the advent of the 21st century. Designed as a core text for "Introduction to Latin America" courses, it can also be used effectively as a supplemental reader in a wide variety of discipline-orientated curriculums. The authors provide up-to-date, thorough analyses not only of history, politics and economics, but also of class, ethnicity, the role of women, religious beliefs, education and cultural expression, and the environment. Each topic is covered with reference to the latest available scholarship. Encouraging an appreciation of Latin America as an area profoundly influenced by colonial legacies, developmental transitions, and the democratisation of formerly authoritarian systems, grappling now with the critical problems caused by shifting demographics, wide-spread poverty, inflation, international debt, corruption and narcotrafficking, this text reveals the complexity of Latin America's challenges, their global impact, and the prospects for the future of the region.