Latin America and the Global Cold War

by Thomas C. Field (Editor), Stella Krepp (Editor), Vanni Pettinà (Editor)

Overview

Latin America and the Global Cold War analyzes more than a dozen of Latin America's forgotten encounters with Africa, Asia, and the Communist world, and by placing the region in meaningful dialogue with the wider Global South, this volume produces the first truly global history of contemporary Latin America. It uncovers a multitude of overlapping and sometimes conflicting iterations of Third Worldist movements in Latin America, and offers insights for better understanding the region's past, as well as its possible futures, challenging us to consider how the Global Cold War continues to inform Latin America's ongoing political struggles.

Contributors: Miguel Serra Coelho, Thomas C. Field Jr., Sarah Foss, Michelle Getchell, Eric Gettig, Alan McPherson, Stella Krepp, Eline van Ommen, Eugenia Palieraki, Vanni Pettina, Tobias Rupprecht, David M. K. Sheinin, Christy Thornton, Miriam Elizabeth Villanueva, and Odd Arne Westad.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781469655697
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	05/18/2020
Series:	New Cold War History
Pages:	440
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.25(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Thomas C. Field Jr. is associate professor of global security and intelligence studies at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.

Stella Krepp is assistant professor of Iberian and Latin American history at Bern University.

Vanni Pettina is associate professor of Latin American international history at El Colegio de Mexico.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

As exciting as the burgeoning new scholarship on the Latin American Cold War has been, it has given too little attention to the region's role as a fundamental participant in 'third world' projects elsewhere in the Global South. This big, bold volume, which brings together junior and senior scholars and promotes crosstalk between area specialists and 'new international historians,' provides a timely corrective. In the process it brings Latin America more integrally into critical discussions of the Global Cold War.—Gil Joseph, co-editor of In from the Cold: Latin America's New Encounter with the Cold War

Creating a new world history means tracing transnational connections that did not necessarily involve the great powers, and understanding the alternative spatial units and regional or global orders that people outside the metropoles sought to create. Here are fourteen stimulating essays that do just that. That they look outward from Latin America, which we often assume was fully locked into the Cold War binary—rather than from parts of Asia and Africa that we already knew were partially outside that binary—makes their challenge to established historiographic frameworks all the more striking. And that most of Cold War Latin America does not fit comfortably under the rubric of 'decolonization,' either—having gained formal sovereignty more than a century earlier—adds still another important conceptual challenge.—Kenneth Pomeranz, co-author of The World That Trade Created: Society, Culture, and the World Economy, 1400 to the Present

Editorial Reviews

In the tradition of the best edited volumes . . . [this book] challenges dominant historiographical trends and opens new fields of exploration. In breaking through the national and regional isolation of most of the literature on Latin America's Cold War and international relations, the volume invites historians to rethink Latin America's place in the world and in global trends and identities."—American Historical Review

Attempting to correct historical omissions that either neglect Latin America's role in the Third World or discuss only how US foreign policy impacted the region, this volume acknowledges how Latin America's engagement in global affairs fostered and contributed to conversations that challenged US imperialism and pushed for a multilateral approach to development that treated all states equally."—CHOICE

A must-read book for anyone interested in following the intellectual expansion and breadth of Cold War studies in relation to the region…signals the concrete emergence of a field that reaches beyond the Cold War to explore Latin America's complex relationship with the world."—Hispanic American Historical Review

An important new volume. . . . An invaluable supplement to international histories of Latin America that remain too narrowly focused on the Western Hemisphere."—H-Net Reviews

Break[s] new ground that promises to reshape future research on the Cold War in the Americas."—The Americas

Latin America and the Global Cold War achieves its objective: it tells complicated stories of Latin American foreign relations that have been underemphasized and does so in such a way that builds upon the extant literature. . . . This is an anthology that should be widely read. It is most obviously important to historians of Latin America, and especially scholars of Latin American foreign relations."—H-Diplo Reviews

A superb piece of work."—Estudios Interdisciplinarios de America Latina y el Caribe

With memorable anecdotes, concise chapters, and accessible theory, there is much to discover for professional and general readers alike."—Origins

This work opens new avenues for reflection, interesting avenues for thinking about the history of Latin America during the Cold War beyond its connection with the Cuban revolution or the American intervention, and invites the production of fresher narratives" (trans.)—Historia Mexicana

This book not only brings new transnational approaches for topics of the history of Latin America in the 20th century, but also opens new questions and perspectives for historiography. . . . [Latin America and the Global Cold War also creates a more complex understanding of one's own political struggles and ideological issues of the time in an international environment." (trans.)—Historia & Guerra

From the Publisher