(Part 2) Reddit mentions: The best south america history books

It's a tricky subject and a lot of Very Serious People have written studies about what a boon it has been to the economy and populace of Chile, but most of those people are advocates of the neoliberal socio-economic model so they tend to see and say things that support that narrative.

I'd say if you really want to dive into this subject, you should start with the book The Pinochet File by Peter Kornbluh/the National Security Archive. It uses a wealth of declassified US intelligence and state department documents to examine the history of Pinochet's rise to power and his government around that time. While it doesn't directly address privatization of the country's social security system, it gives a great look at the political environment and conditions in which it happened and, in my opinion at least, is essential reading to parsing any sort of later analysis of the policy shift.

i've ordered Herr Pep and Boquita. really pumped to read those. on the internet, Marti Perarnau has interesting guides to various European leagues.

the best soccer book of ALL time though is by Eduardo Galeano, El futbol a sol y sombra, also known as Soccer in Sun and Shadow.

Inverting the Pyramid is Great, How Soccer Explains the World is awesome, and Alex Bellos' book, Futebol: The Brazilian Way of Life is also really, really great.

Piñera won a free and fair election 55%-45%.

if you study the political history of Chile prior to Pinochet, there were several attempted coups against Allende, and a dozens against his predecessors. Chile didn’t have strong or even almost strong democratic institutions until the 1990s.

I’d recommend this book for more info: The Breakdown of Democratic Regimes: Chile. Best book I’ve read on Chile, by far.

>if they had met the armies prior to disease they wouldn't have had a chance most likely.

But, that happened. If you read the description of the battle in Cajamarca, you will notice that I'm not so wrong, and that Spanish also had better tactics, and incredible amount of luck. Curiosity of Atahualpa let them inside, when emperor came they let him and only some 5000 men inside the fortress they abandoned. And then, slaughter begun with cannons. It shocked Inca army so much, that cutting them with heavy swords was just a hard work, but not a problem. Even a man on a horse was a miracle, not to mention shiny armor and all. That was crucial, like a sudden coup...

Diseases, yes. But more in Mezoamerica (when Pedro de Alvarado started to conquer Guatemala, Mayans were decimated because messengers from the Mexico Valley already transfered the diseases). Pizzaro had to face full Inca army of some 100.000 men. And he had tactics as I said. Cortes had much harder way, had to gather other tribe nations against the Aztecas, and had to go through Noche Triste. Difference was this: while Inca could not function as a society without Atahualpa (when he was captured), Aztecas didn't give a s..t when Moctezuma was in custody.

Both stories open this theme of difference between civilizations, it was a true meeting of two worlds, and it happened relatively recently. Fantastic read here, about Peru, is a book by Prescott: http://www.amazon.com/History-Conquest-Peru-William-Prescott/dp/0486440079

Hey there.

Liberal Thought in Argentina, 1837-1940 edited by Natalio R. Botana and Ezequiel Gallo. It's a compilation of primary sources, check out "Message on the Electoral Reform (Buenos Aires, February 29, 1912)". It's on Project MUSE, here (your school most likely has access to it): http://muse.jhu.edu/books/9781614879060 . This is a good compilation of sources on that period, so it'll be useful.

A Short History of the Argentinians by Félix Luna. Haven't read this personally yet, but Félix Luna is very respected and I know it's a good summary of Argentine history. If you haven't gone too deep in your readings, this might be a good starting point and you can probably jump to other bibliography based on the sources. Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Argentinians-Felix-Luna/dp/9504904033 . Not period-specific though, sorry I couldn't help you with that.

Let me know if this helped. Good luck!

If you want to start with the colonial period, I'd start with Matthew Restall's "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest": http://www.amazon.com/Seven-Spanish-Conquest-Matthew-Restall/dp/0195176111/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416504333&sr=8-1&keywords=restall+seven+myths+of+the+spanish+conquest. It is about demystifying certain aspects of the conquest and it's highly readable, insightful and entertaining.
Then, I would definitely go for Steve J. Stern's "Huamanga": http://www.amazon.com/Indian-Peoples-Challenge-Spanish-Conquest/dp/0299141845/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416504068&sr=8-1&keywords=huamanga. It concentrates on Peru, but it is totally relevant to Latin America's global colonial experience.
I would also recommend, for a survey of the andean nineteenth-century's socio-political landscape, Brooke Larson's "Trials of Nation-making": http://www.amazon.com/Trials-Nation-Making-Liberalism-Ethnicity/dp/0521567300/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1416504627&sr=8-1&keywords=brooke+larson. It's a well written, synthetic and critical explanation of how race and ethnicity played a key role in defining the political projects of the Andean elite after the independence.
After all that we could move on to the twentieth-century...

If you are looking for movies, as a chronological introduction, go for: Herzog's "Aguirre", Joffé's "The Mission", Alea's "La última cena", Eisenstein's "Que viva Mexico", Kalatasov's "Soy Cuba", Soderbergh's "Che", Alea's "Memorias del subdesarollo" Costa-Gavras' "State of siege" and "Missing", Guzman's "La batalla de Chile", Polanski's "Death and the Maiden", Puenzo's "La historia official", Bollaín's "También la lluvia"

You have a lot of fun in front of you. Good luck!

If anyone is interested in History:

Latin American in the Era of the Cuban Revolution


Inevitable Revolutions

Both great books that go well with the theme of Latin America this season. The first book is an easier read, while the second might be better suited for history lovers.

what, all of it? maybe something by galeano? memories of fire or open veins.

for chile, specifically, muñoz's dictator's shadow is very good. also, i really liked this anthropological text - very good view into current (well, more or less) chilean culture and surprisingly easy to read.

You're better off asking someone on /r/askhistorians i'm afraid. Most of the material i draw on is a steady consumption of Venezuela related news from Aljazeera, The Washington Post and Venezuelaanalysis. A book i can recommend, though about The Latin American left in general, is "The Resurgence of the Latin American Left"

http://www.amazon.com/Resurgence-Latin-American-Left-ebook/dp/B005GW3V3A/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1396372393&sr=1-4&keywords=latin+american+socialism

Its kind of dense and can take a while to plow through (in my experience at least) but its well worth it. It deals with the growth of socialism in Latin America, its causes, effects and the political context of this in specific case studies. I think it gives a very nice and scholarly overview.

On my summer reading list, I have:

• Player Piano
  
  
• Lolita (re-reading. Nabokov's use of language is sublime)
  
  
• The Swerve: How The World Became Modern
  
  
• The Conquest of the Incas
  
  
• Let The Great World Spin
  
  
• Theodore Rex
  
  
  I'm currently half way through The Conquest of the Incas. If anyone has interest in the Spanish invasion of Mesoamerica, I highly recommend it. It's a very vivid account of the political games Pizarro and his generals played to take over the Inca empire and solidify their grip in the New World.

check out "Attending Marvels" by G G Simpson. Its a book, but a good place to start looking at the evolution of horses. Plus, Simpson was a bad ass, collecting fossils in the middle of a revolution and things like that.

https://www.amazon.com/Attending-marvels-Patagonian-journal-reading/dp/0809437260

Oos. Simpson is famous for horses, but this is Patagonia. That was marsupial country. Its been a long time since I read it, but I loved it.

Hello there!

By far, the very best book I have read on Argentina history is The Invention of Argentina by Nicholas Shumway which is, remarkably, written by an american bloke who spent quite a bit of time here getting his PhD.
It's brief, and its insight on the foundations of our country is truly brilliant.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Invention-Argentina-Nicolas-Shumway/dp/0520082842/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1346976124&sr=8-1

EDIT: Added URL

I recommend these books:

• Jeffery Lang (3) books: Struggling to Surrender, Even Angels Ask and Losing My Religion.
  
  
• Jonathan Brown Hadith- Muhammad's Legacy in the Medieval and Modern World
  
  
• Muhammad Asad The Road to Mecca
  
  
• Tariq Ramadan In the Footsteps of the Prophet
  
  
• Karen Armstrong (2) books: Islam: A Short History
  and Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time
  
  
• Martin Lings Muhammad: His Life Based on the Earliest Sources
  
  
• John L. Esposito Who Speaks For Islam?
  
  
• Nathan Lean The Islamophobia Industry
  
  
• Malcolm X The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X, Ossie Davis (Afterword), Alex Haley (As Told to)
  
  
• Sherman Jackson Islam and the Blackamerican: Looking Toward the Third Resurrection
  
  
• Dr. Ejaz Naqvi The Quran: with or Against the Bible?
  
  
• Hamza Yusuf Purification of the Heart
  
  
• Imam Zaid Shakir's translation, commentary and notes on Imam al-Harith al-Muhasibi's Risala al-Mustarshidin Treatise For The Seekers Of Guidance
  
  
• Al-Nawawi Nawawi Forty Hadiths
  
  Side note on Quran translation:
  
  Stay away from
  
  
• The Penguin Koran (The Koran -Penguin Classics- by Anonymous and N. J. Dawood). Its been written by non-Muslim who also changed the order of the Suras. In fact, Dawood's translation might as well been written by Robert Spencer!
  
  Try:
  
  
• The Gracious Quran: A Modern-Phrased Interpretation in English
  
  
• Mona Siddiqui How to Read The Qur'an
  
  
• Bayyinah Podcast for a comprehensive tafseer with Nouman Ali Khan (The iTunes Podcast URL)
  
  
  Misc:
  
  
• Terry Alford Prince among Slaves: The True Story of an African Prince Sold Into Slavery in the American South
  
  
• Omar Ibn Said A Muslim American Slave
  
  
• João José Reis Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia
  
  
• Ahmad Dallal Islam, Science, and the Challenge of History
  
  
• Use this link to download the PDF copy of Even Angels Ask by Jeffrey Lang.
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by Muhammad Asad on on scribd.
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by MAS Abdul Haleem OXFORD WORLD’S CLASSICS
  
  
• Use this link to download copy of Quran translation by Saheeh International (PDF)
  
  
• The Purpose of Life - Jeffrey Lang
  
  Movie:
  
  
• Journey to Mecca

Yanqui here, I just wanted to second the nomination for Guerrillas and Generals. It gives a great history of what led up to the 1976 coup in addition to the standard info about 76-83.

If you want more of the raw data, pick up Nunca Más, which has been translated into English. If you don't want to buy it, you can access the entire report here.

Also, there's some really interesting work done on the aftermath of the dictatorship. Pick up A Lexicon of Terror or Postmemories of Terror, both of which are excellent.

I only know books in English, but the Cambridge history books have been amazingly detailed resources so far:

Colonial Brazil (Cambridge History of Latin America)

Brazil: Empire and Republic, 1822-1930 (Cambridge History of Latin America)

The Cambridge History of Latin America (Volume 9) (I haven't bought this because of the price)



A wonderfully fun book:

Historia de uma Viagem Feita á Terra do Brazil ( I read the English version )

For history suggestions, don't forget /r/history

​

Looking quickly at their excellent reading/watching list, https://www.reddit.com/r/history/wiki/recommendedlist

I see this:

​

Latin American/Caribbean History

General

• *Born In Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America: Fourth Edition By John Charles Chasteeen. This edition was published in 2016 and features an improved set of maps and illustrations.
  
• *The Oxford Handbook of Latin American History By John C. Moye
  
• *Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent: 2009 edition By Eduardo Galeano.
  
• Latin America: Regions and People By Robert B. Kent.
  
• The Cambridge History of Latin America By Leslie Bethell.
  
• Afro-Latin America: 1800-2000 By George Reid Andrews.
  
• Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization By Arthur Demarest is one of the best introductions to Mayan history.
  
• Ancient Mexico and Central America: Archaeology and Culture History By Susan Toby Evans.
  
• In From The Cold: Latin America's New Encounter With the Cold War by Gilbert M. Joseph and Daniela Spencer.
  
• Revolution and Revolutionaries: Guerrilla Movements in Latin America By Daniel Castro.
  
• The History of Latin America: A Collision of Cultures By Michael Eakin explores 500 years of Latin American history and looks at the economic, political, social and cultural evolution of its nations and their peoples.
  
• The Oxford History of Latin American Economics By Jose Antonio Ocampo and Jaime Ros. This is a good introduction to understanding the development of economics and policy in Latin America.
  
• Liberators: Latin America's Struggle for Independence by Robert Harvey.
  
• Politics of Latin America: The Power Game: 4th Edition by Harry E. Vandon and Gary Prevost looks at the political history of Latin America and delves into the sociopolitical issues that have influenced Latin America from the ground up as well emerging issues and new problems facing Latin America in the age of globalization. Vandon and Prevost
  
  

  South America
  

  
  

• A Concise History of Brazil By Boris and Sergio Fausto.
  
• Short History of Brazil, A : From Pre-Colonial Peoples to Modern Economic Miracle By Gordon Kerr.
  
• A New Economic History of Argentina by Gerardo Della Paolera and Alan M. Taylor.
  
• The Argentina Reader by Gabriella Nouzeilles and Graciela Montaldo.
  
• A History of Chile: Enduring Editions by Luis Galdames.
  
• The Paraguay Reader: History, Culture, Politics by Peter Lambert and Andrew Nickson.
  
• The Ecuador Reader by Carlos de la Torre and Steve Striffler.
  
  

  Central America
  

  
  

• Power in the Isthmus: A Political History of Modern Central America By James Dunkerley.
  
• Simon Bolivar: A Life By John Lynch explores the life of the extraordinary man who liberated six countries from the Spanish Empire made a lasting impression on the politics and society of Central America still tangible today.
  
• The History of Panama by Robert C. Harding covers a century of history, economy and culture in Panama.
  
• The Costa Rica Reader by Steven Palmer. Covers the history of Costa Rica.
  
• Columbia Before Independence: Economy, Society and Politics under Bourbon Rule by Anthony McFarlane.
  
• Democracy and Socialism in Sandinista Nicaragua By Harry E. Vandon and Gary Prevost.
  
  

I'm a historian of Latin America, so I really only know about the US-Latin American cases or the US/Canadian/European - Caribbean cases. Peter Kornbluh has published a lot of declassified US primary source documents that relate to US interventionism abroad.

The Pinochet File, about Chile
Bay of Pigs Declassified, about Cuba

A really good secondary source is Greg Grandin's book Empire's Workshop.

A great secondary source on this sort of stuff occurring during the 1970s in Southeast Asia, by Alfred McCoy, is The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade. Meticulously researched (the book is over 1000 pages, the footnotes are endless). McCoy is a pretty tremendous historian, out of U of Wisconsin. His area of expertise is Southeast Asia, not the US, and like me, he stumbled into a much darker story than he ever expected to find.

Taussig's Diary of a Limpieza is one of my favorites, although it's a dark subject to read about.

This is a fiction novel, but The Tale of Murasaki is written by an anthropologist. I also recommend the author's non-fiction work on Geisha. :)

You should take a look at the War of the Pacific which raged on the Pacific coast of South America. If you want a (the only?) good book on it, try Andean Tragedy. I just imagine if more nations got involved or certain people got in on it, or if physics were slightly different and airships were used. I imagine landships and fortresses and escapes and ironclads. Learning history is so much fun because of all the serendipitous mishaps and near-misses which create "could-have," "should-have," and "would-have" instances which astound!

Ethiopian industrialization intrigues similarly!

I find starting from fact is where I draw my enjoyment from steampunk. I love Girl Genius and fantasy, but alternate history is where my brain always goes.

I just ordered this book to learn more

A must read would be the pinochet file, about operation condor.

I recommend to have a look at the wikipedia's page on anti american sentiment in latin america as a starting point for specific actions and check out the "further reading sections" for each event.

The banana wars that are more about central america and the caribean are also worth looking into.

	

	

	

> # Did the “Invisible Blockade” against Allende’s Chile work?
>
>
>
> Did an “invisible blockade” by the United States fatally undermine the Chilean economy under the presidency of Salvador Allende (1970-73)? Did it actually work? Short answer: No.
>
> Note: this post is not about the wider US involvement in the September 1973 coup or about the regime of General Pinochet. It’s about the economic and financial dimensions of US-Chilean relations during the Allende years. (Edit: For a short post on post-Allende Chile, see my “There was no Chilean miracle“.)
>
> - - - - - -
>
> [allende_at_un_1972](https://pseudoerasmus.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/allende_at_un_1972.jpg?w=300&h=222)On the eve of the violent military coup against Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973, Chile found itself in unprecedented economic chaos. Shaken by hyperinflation, widespread shortages, and labour unrest, the “Chilean road to socialism” might have been doomed by simple economic collapse, even if the coup had never taken place. But for many people it’s an article of faith that the United States was deeply responsible for the destabilisation of the Chilean economy. In that narrative, the Nixon administration had imposed an “invisible blockade” against Chile, a multi-front economic war conducted by an alarmed imperial hegemon bent on aborting the first democratic socialist experiment in Latin America.
>
> But was the “invisible blockade” actually successful? Did it cause, or contribute substantially to, Chile’s shambles in 1972-73? This narrower question of the actual economic impact of the ‘blockade’ has gotten lost in the shuffle of the larger question of US culpability in Pinochet’s coup.
>
> In this post, I argue, regardless of whether the “blockade” was as extensive or as maliciously intended as its maximalist critics allege, it did not make any difference.
>
> (1)
>
> The controversy about the US involvement in Chile peaked in the1970s immediately following the coup and in the wake of the Church committee hearings in the US Senate. But it has periodically flared up in tandem with coup anniversaries, the arrest of Pinochet in London, his prosecution in Chile, his death in 2006, etc. At the same time, there’s been a steady stream of books and articles dealing with US interference in Chile which mention the ‘blockade’ mostly in passing. Yet these usually assume as a matter of course that it must have ‘worked’.
>
> For example, Peter Kornbluh’s The Pinochet File, now in its second printing (2013), combines a narrative of Yankee shenanigans with fascimiles of declassified US government documents relating to Chile. Amongst those are Richard Nixon’s hand-written instruction to the CIA to “make the [Chilean] economy scream“; or Henry Kissinger’s infamous National Security Memorandum 93, calling for economic and financial measures against Chile. The steps outlined in that memo bear close resemblance to what the United States actually did.
>
> And such documents are essentially regarded as prima facie evidence for the efficacy of the “invisible blockade”. Or most people just don’t really give it much thought and default to the conventional view you can find by googling the “invisible blockade” (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.)
>
> The literature on Chile in 1970-73 is incredibly large. Yet the part that’s specifically on the ‘blockade’ that I’m aware of is quite modest in comparison:
>
> - Farnsworth et al., Facing the Blockade (1973) (Spanish translation in PDF).
> - Paul Sigmund, “The Invisible Blockade and the Overthrow of Allende” (1974) (Spanish translation in PDF).
> - Exchange between Farnsworth and Sigmund in Foreign Policy (1974).
> - pp 79-118 of Petras & Morley, The United States and Chile: Imperialism and the Overthrow of the Allende Government (1975)
> - Farnsworth et al. “The invisible blockade: the United States reacts” in Chile: Politics and Society (1976), pp 338-373.
> - Petras & Morley, “On the U.S. and the Overthrow of Allende: Reply to Professor Sigmund’s Criticism” (1978)
> - Sandro Sideri, ed., Chile 1970-73: Economic Development and its Interational Setting (1979).
> - chapter 4 of Gonzalo Martner, El gobierno del presidente Salvador Allende 1970-1973 (1988);
> - pp 200-241, Mark Falcoff, Modern Chile, 1970-1989: A Critical History (1989).
>
> Except for the Sideri volume, this ‘blockade’ literature is about financial politics and diplomacy, not economics. They dwell on (a) the motivations of the US government, various private banks and corporations, the multilateral financial institutions, etc.; and (b) the minutiae of Chile’s external financial relations in the years 1970-73, such as the Paris Club negotiations over the country’s external debt, World Bank deliberations, legal proceedings related to copper, etc.
>
> The ‘blockade’ literature seems to agree on the following :
>
> - US foreign aid to Chile fell dramatically in the Allende years. This included long-term development loans (USAID), trade finance (Eximbank), etc.
> - During Allende’s tenure, no new loans were originated by the World Bank, and the amount of loans from the Inter-American Development Bank fell dramatically. Chile had been a major beneficiary of both institutions before 1971.
> - At the end of 1971, the Allende government announced a moratorium on the servicing of foreign debt (mostly owed to US banks).
> - There was a gradual reduction, not a total elimination, of lines of credit from US private banks which normally financed Chile’s imports on a short-term basis.
> - There was no embargo on trade, but Chile had to pay for imports in cash upfront, in proportion to the loss of trade finance.
> - The Allende government completed the nationalisation of the copper mining companies initiated by the previous administration (Frei), but decided not to compensate the mostly U.S. owners.
> - US copper companies attempted in various jurisdictions, including France, to attach Chilean copper shipments, but this met with only partial success.
> - Chile was able to obtain aid and credit from alternative sources in Western Europe and Latin America, as well as the socialist bloc.
>
> Sigmund and Falcoff, who might be called ‘anti-blockadists’, argue there was no blockade because there wasn’t a total cut-off in aid and credit. And the “credit squeeze” by private banks was not politically motivated, but largely a legitimate financial response to Chile’s deteriorating credit-worthiness. They also argue alternative sources of aid and credit went a long way in compensating for the loss of traditional sources.
>

> (continues in next comment)