Essays

Latin American History

Essays on colonization, indigenous societies, revolution, political traditions, and historical memory in Latin America.

Warrior Ethos and Religious Life

Inga Clendinnen's account of the Aztec warrior ethos, and why ritual and religion must frame any reading of sacrifice in Tenochtitlan.

Looking past human sacrifice to the social structure, Chinampa farming, and market networks that distinguished Aztec civilization.

Reassessing Che Guevara and his theory of guerrilla warfare against the unrealized ideals of the Cuban Revolution.

How Hanke and Keen push past the Black Legend and White Legend toward a nuanced reading of Spanish colonization in the New World.

Paul Zagorski on the evolution of Latin American militaries, their dual role, and the shifting balance with civilian governments.

Challenging J.M. Roberts' dismissal of Native American societies and reassessing their place in pre- and post-Columbian history.

Bushnell and Macaulay on Latin America's emergence from colonialism and their case that the region is a free-market contender, not a dependency.

Paul Lewis's Guerrillas and Generals on Argentina's Dirty War, state-sponsored terror, and the ethics of brutal means for noble ends.

Why Victor Davis Hanson's claim that Europe's military tradition won the New World oversimplifies the Spanish conquest of the Americas.

Kiemen and Southey on the Jesuits among Indigenous peoples in Brazil and Paraguay: protectors, or one form of bondage traded for another?

Phillip Berryman on liberation theology in Latin America as a theological framework centered on the poor, and its socio-economic impact.

Rigoberta Menchu's testimony of oppression and political awakening amid the scorched-earth violence of Guatemala's civil war.

William Denevan's challenge to the pristine myth, arguing the Americas of 1492 were a populated, heavily shaped landscape, not untouched wilderness.

Glen Dealy's argument that Latin American nations chose governments rooted in their own traditions rather than failing at liberal democracy.

Dennis Gilbert on the 1992 Mexican textbook controversy and how Salinas-era revisions sanitized class conflict from national history.

Weighing Juan Manuel de Rosas' legacy in Argentina through Romero's authoritarian critique and Burgin's case for economic prosperity.

John Phelan on the gap between legal mandates and practice in the Spanish imperial bureaucracy, read through Frank's conflicting standards.