A Cultural History of Underdevelopment explores the changing place of Latin America in U.S. culture from the mid-nineteenth century to the recent U.S.-Cuba detente. In doing so, it uncovers the complex ways in which Americans have imagined the global geography of poverty and progress, as the hemispheric imperialism of the nineteenth century yielded to the Cold War discourse of -underdevelopment.- John Patrick Leary examines representations of uneven development in Latin America across a variety of genres and media, from canonical fiction and poetry to cinema, photography,...

A Cultural History of Underdevelopment explores the changing place of Latin America in U.S. culture from the mid-nineteenth century to the recent U.S.-Cuba detente. In doing so, it uncovers the complex ways in which Americans have imagined the global geography of poverty and progress, as the hemispheric imperialism of the nineteenth century yielded to the Cold War discourse of -underdevelopment.- John Patrick Leary examines representations of uneven development in Latin America across a variety of genres and media, from canonical fiction and poetry to cinema, photography,...