This edited collection explores how different dictators and authoritarian parties and factions have frequently succeeded in rising to power in modern Latin America, often retaining political and/or military control for long periods of time. The volume examines whether there are common factors within the Latin American sociopolitical, cultural, and historical context that have allowed authoritarianism to play such a fundamental and recurrent role in the continent's development. Including chapters on Mexico, Chile, Cuba, Paraguay, and Honduras, the work will be of interest to scholars and...

This is a study of one of the leading politicians of Independent Mexico, Jose Maria Tornel y Mendivil, whose loyalty to Santa Anna and whose skills as a writer led him to play a crucial role in enabling the caudillo's repeated rise to power during this period. This first biography of Tornel in English provides a new insight into the political thought of the santanistas and the ways in which Santa Anna was able to return to power time and again in spite of the fact that he was deemed responsible for such major national disasters as the Texas campaign of 1836 and the 1847 defeat against the...