This book is a disciplined, paired comparison of the eight Latin American countries with the longest history of urban commercial and industrial development Brazil and Chile, Mexico and Venezuela, Uruguay and Columbia, Argentina and Peru. The authors show how and why state party responses to the emergence of an organized working class have been crucial in shaping political coalitions, party systems, patterns of stability or conflict and the broad contours of regimes and their changes. The argument is complex yet clear, the analysis systematic yet nuanced. The focus is on autonomous political...