Posthumously published to wide acclaim, "The Lettered City "is a vitally important work by one of Latin America s most highly respected theorists. Angel Rama s groundbreaking study presented here in its first English translation provides an overview of the power of written discourse in the historical formation of Latin American societies, and highlights the central role of cities in deploying and reproducing that power. To impose order on a vast New World empire, the Iberian monarchs created carefully planned cities where institutional and legal powers were administered through a specialized...