Uruguay was once the most stable democracy in Latin America, but in 1973 the military seized power for the first time. Political parties did not disappear, however, even though they were made illegal. By the 1980s Uruguay's generals were anxious to find a way to withdraw from power. Yet they continued to insist on certain guarantees as the price for holding elections. The issue of whether to make any concessions to the military came to divide the country's three major parties--the Blancos, the Colorados, and the Left. Nevertheless, the latter two parties eventually did agree to a pact in July...

Founded in 1891, the Unió n Cí vica Radical, generally known as the Radical Party, is the oldest national political party in Argentina. As the strongest opposition party during the 1890s, a pivotal decade in the birth of Argentina's party system, the Radical Party effected a critical development in Argentine politics: it created a system of open confrontation and political competition. This study offers not merely a revised version of the party's story but also a new perspective on the politics of the nation as a whole.

This is the first book-length biography of Andres Bello, the nineteenth-century Latin American intellectual, to appear in English. Bello was also a poet, a literary critic, and an influential statesman whose contributions to nation-building and Spanish American identity are widely recognized across the region. This work provides a comprehensive interpretation of Bello's work, gives an account of Bello's life based on new information from archives in four countries, and sheds new light on this critical period in Latin American history."

This book examines the demographic and economic history of slavery in Minas Gerais, the single largest slave-holding region in Brazil, from its settlement in the early eighteenth century until the abolition of Brazilian slavery in 1888. This slave population was remarkable in its ability to diversify economically as well as to increase through natural reproduction, rather than through importation via the trans-Altantic slave trade. Extensively researched and finely documented, this book places the history of a unique Brazilian slave community into comparative perspective.

In this case study of the structure of power and ruling class domination, the author analyzes the political economy of Juazeiro, Bahia, and Petrolina, Pernambuco while focusing on the history of patriarchal families, ruling class, and patrimonial governments. He shows that the ruling classes benefited from the outside capital of the State and corporations, but that the State is an all pervasive force that facilitates the reproduction of advanced forms of capital. An essential issue is how the local ruling class relates to the State and national and multinational capital, for it is clear that...

This book provides a study of the transformation of the Latin American oil system from one in which the international oil companies dominated to one which is dominated by the main state oil companies, and an account of how some of the more important of the state companies have operated. This comprehensive guide to the evolution of the Latin American oil system combines in one volume a synthesis of material from secondary sources and original research and thus provides an invaluable reference for all concerned with the history and economy of Latin America and with the development and...

In this book, Leon Zamosc provides an account of the history of ANUC and its struggle on three main fronts: for land, for the defence of the colonists, and for the protection of smallholders. The main focus of the book is on the land struggles. Professor Zamosc adopts a structural perspective, examining the agrarian contradictions that propelled the peasant struggles, the changing relationship between the peasant movement and the state, and the political and ideological content of the peasant challenge. He explores these issues in the light of the shifting patterns of class alignments and...

This book examines the formative period of Chile's history.

This book provides a systematic analysis of the performance of Brazil's large state-owned enterprises. The Brazilian economic system encourages private enterprise, but the government itself owns and operates such critical industries as petrochemicals, steel, electricity and telecommunications. The Brazilian state has assumed the role of an entrepreneur not for ideological reasons, but as a pragmatic means of speeding up the process of economic growth. The author examines the economic and financial performance of these state-owned enterprises in terms of their contribution to economic growth....

Explores how workers both perceived, responded to and helped shape the outcome of Mexico's revolution.