Critique of Latin American Reason is one of the most important philosophical texts to have come out of South America in recent decades. First published in 1996, it offers a sweeping critique of the foundational schools of thought in Latin American philosophy and critical theory. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that “Latin America” is not so much a geographical entity, a culture, or a place, but rather an object of knowledge produced by a family of discourses in the humanities that are inseparably linked to colonial power relationships. Using the archaeological and genealogical methods of Michel Foucault, he analyzes the political, literary, and philosophical discourses and modes of power that have contributed to the making of “Latin America.” Castro-Gómez examines the views of a wide range of Latin American thinkers on modernity, postmodernity, identity, colonial history, and literature, also considering how these questions have intersected with popular culture. His critique spans Central and South America, and it also implicates broader and protracted global processes. This book presents this groundbreaking work of contemporary critical theory in English translation for the first time. It features a foreword by Linda Martín Alcoff, a new preface by the author, and an introduction by Eduardo Mendieta situating Castro-Gómez’s thought in the context of critical theory in Latin America and the Global South. Two appendixes feature an interview with Castro-Gómez that sheds light on the book’s composition and short provocations responding to each chapter from a multidisciplinary forum of contemporary scholars who resituate the work within a range of perspectives including feminist, Francophone African, and decolonial Black political thought.

Philosophy and Literature in Latin America presents a unique and original view of the current state of development in Latin America of two disciplines that are at the core of the humanities. Divided into two parts, each section explores the contributions of distinguished American and Latin American experts and authors. The section on literature includes the literary activities of Latin Americans working in the United States, an area in which very little research has been demonstrated and, for that reason, will add an interesting new dimension to the field of Latin American studies.

Operating within the framework of postcolonial studies and decolonial theory, this important work starts from the assumption that the violence exercised by European colonialism was not only physical and economic, but also ‘epistemic’. Santiago Castro-Gómez argues that toward the end of the eighteenth century, this epistemic violence of the Spanish Empire assumed a specific form: zero-point hubris. The ‘many forms of knowing’ were integrated into a chronological hierarchy in which scientific-enlightened knowledge appears at the highest point on the cognitive scale, while all other epistemes are seen as constituting its past. Enlightened criollo thinkers did not hesitate to situate the Black, Indigenous, and mestizo peoples of New Granada in the lowest position on this cognitive scale. Castro-Gómez argues that in the colonial periphery of the Spanish Americas, Enlightenment constituted not only the position of epistemic distance separating science from all other knowledges, but also the position of ethnic distance separating the criollos from the ‘castes’. Epistemic violence—and not only physical violence—is thereby found at the very origin of Colombian nationality.

The Idea of Latin America is a geo-political manifesto which insists on the need to leave behind an idea which belonged to the nation-building mentality of nineteenth-century Europe. Charts the history of the concept of Latin America from its emergence in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century through various permutations to the present day. Asks what is at stake in the survival of an idea which subdivides the Americas. Reinstates the indigenous peoples and migrations excluded by the image of a homogenous Latin America with defined borders. Insists on the pressing need to leave behind an idea which belonged to the nation-building mentality of nineteenth-century Europe.

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe. Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende's inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

Historians of Latin American philosophy have paid relatively little attention to the development of philosophical analysis in Latin America. There are two reasons for this neglect: First, they have been primarily concerned with the forma tive period of philosophical development, in particular with the so called "founders" of La ti n American philosophy. And second. philosophical analysis did not become a noticeable philosophical trend in Latin America until recent years. True. a nunber of Latin American philosophers took notice of Moore. Russell. the members of the Vienna Circle and other important figures in the analytic movement qui te early. But these were isolated instances that lacked the sustained effort and broad base indispensible to make a serious impact in the development of Latin American philosophy. That has changed now. There are not only good numbers of philosophers who work within the analytic tradition, but also some journals and institutes dedicated to the analytic mode of philosophizing. It is. therefore. most appropriate to publish a collection of articles which would introduce the reader of philosophy to the most representative analytic material produced so far in Latin America. Indeed. it is not only appropriate. but also necessary. since most of the published analytic literature to date is scattered in various journals, sometimes of difficult access. Moreover, not all that has been published is representative of the best already produced and of the potential that the movement has in Latin America.

State Building in Latin America diverges from existing scholarship in developing explanations both for why state-building efforts in the region emerged and for their success or failure. First, Latin American state leaders chose to attempt concerted state-building only where they saw it as the means to political order and economic development. Fragmented regionalism led to the adoption of more laissez-faire ideas and the rejection of state-building. With dominant urban centers, developmentalist ideas and state-building efforts took hold, but not all state-building projects succeeded. The second plank of the book's argument centers on strategies of bureaucratic appointment to explain this variation. Filling administrative ranks with local elites caused even concerted state-building efforts to flounder, while appointing outsiders to serve as administrators underpinned success. Relying on extensive archival evidence, the book traces how these factors shaped the differential development of education, taxation, and conscription in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.

This is an exploration of how Latin America developed an alternative modernity during the early twentieth century, one that challenges the key assumptions of the Western dominant model.

Latin America has experienced a profound transformation in the first two decades of the 21st century: it has been fully incorporated into the global economy, while excluding regions and populations devalued by the logic of capitalism. Technological modernization has gone hand-in-hand with the reshaping of old identities and the emergence of new ones. The transformation of Latin America has been shaped by social movements and political conflicts. The neoliberal model that dominated the first stage of the transformation induced widespread inequality and poverty, and triggered social explosions that led to its own collapse. A new model, neo-developmentalism, emerged from these crises as national populist movements were elected to government in several countries. The more the state intervened in the economy, the more it became vulnerable to corruption, until the rampant criminal economy came to penetrate state institutions. Upper middle classes defending their privileges and citizens indignant because of corruption of the political elites revolted against the new regimes, undermining the model of neo-developmentalism. In the midst of political disaffection and public despair, new social movements, women, youth, indigenous people, workers, peasants, opened up avenues of hope against the background of darkness invading the continent. This book, written by two leading scholars of Latin America, provides a comprehensive and up-do-date account of the new Latin America that is in the process of taking shape today. It will be an indispensable text for students and scholars in Latin American Studies, sociology, politics and media and communication studies, and anyone interested in Latin America today.

Winner of the Premio Iberoamericano Book Award in 1997 (Spanish Edition) What form does the crisis of modernity take in Latin America when societies are politically demobilized and there is no revolutionary agenda in sight? How does postmodern criticism reflect on enlightenment and utopia in a region marked by incomplete modernization, new waves of privatization, great masses of excluded peoples, and profound sociocultural heterogeneity? In No Apocalypse, No Integration Martín Hopenhayn examines the social and philosophical implications of the triumph of neoliberalism and the collapse of leftist and state-sponsored social planning in Latin America. With the failure of utopian movements that promised social change, the rupture of the link between the production of knowledge and practical intervention, and the defeat of modernization and development policy established after World War II, Latin American intellectuals and militants have been left at an impasse without a vital program of action. Hopenhayn analyzes these crises from a theoretical perspective and calls upon Latin American intellectuals to reevaluate their objects of study, their political reality, and their society’s cultural production, as well as to seek within their own history the elements for a new collective discourse. Challenging the notion that strict adherence to a single paradigm of action can rescue intellectual and cultural movements, Hopenhayn advocates a course of epistemological pluralism, arguing that such an approach values respect for difference and for cultural and theoretical diversity and heterodoxy. This essay collection will appeal to readers of sociology, public policy, philosophy, cultural theory, and Latin American history and culture, as well as to those with an interest in Latin America’s current transition.