Malick Ghachem‘s recent book The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2012) takes a long look at Haiti’s colonial history on the legal questions around slavery. In particular, he traces the implementation of the Code Noir,...

Dr. Edmund Hamann, Dr. Stanton Wortham, Dr. Enrique G. Murillo (Eds.) have provided a fascinating and expansive volume on Latino education in the US that features an array of scholars from around the world,

Ruben Flores is an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas. His book Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico’s Melting Pot and Civil Rights in the United States (University of Pennsylvania Press,

In Building A Latino Civil Rights Movement: Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in New York City (UNC Press, 2014), Assistant Professor of History at Washington University in St.

In the 1850s, when the majority of the population of Colombia (known then as New Granada) embraced the emancipation of the remaining 17,000 people still enslaved, the lettered elite quickly tied emancipation to emerging ideas of universal citizenship i...

As slavery came to an end in the Caribbean’s British colonies, officials and local reformers began to worry about how and whether they would convince their newly freed workforce to continue working. More specifically,

As demographic trends continue to mark the so-called “Latinization” of the U.S., pundits across various media outlets struggle to understand the economic, cultural, and political implications of this reality. In popular discourse,

Gregory E. O’Malley examines a crucial, but almost universally overlooked, aspect of the African slave trade in his new book Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807 (University of North Carolina Press for the Omohund...

The (re)making of place has composed an essential aspect of Southern California history from the era of Spanish colonialism to the present. In Aztlan and Arcadia: Religion, Ethnicity, and the Creation of Place (NYU Press,

Jenny Shaw‘s recent book Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean: Irish, Africans, and the Construction of Difference (University of Georgia Press, 2013) analyzes how social, religious, and ethnic categories operated in Barbados and the Leeward Is...

Mexican American religious healing – often called curanderismo – is a vital component of life in the US-Mexican borderlands. In his book Border Medicine: A Transcultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo (New York University Press,

In her transformative text Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldua referred to the U.S.-Mexico border region as “una herida abierta (an open wound) where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds.

Cuba is changing fast. Or is it? Our understandings of Cuban history are shaped by decades of polarized interpretations. Cubans themselves have a particularly vital relationship to their past, and have long used it to guide them in times of crisis and ...

During the early decades of the 20thcentury the nation of Mexico entered the modern era through a series of social, political, and economic transformations spurred by the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920. At the same time,

In December 2014, Cuba and the United States announced their renewed efforts to normalize relations. Diplomatic ties were severed in 1961 following the rise of Fidel Castro and the intensification during the Cold War.

Megan Threlkeld is an associate professor of history at Denison University. Her book Pan-American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014) provides a rich transnational examination of the years fol...

Although the designation now applies to American citizens of Mexican ethnicity writ large, the term Mexican American (hyphenated or not) also refers to the rising generation of ethnic Mexicans born and raised in the U.S.

When the Haitian Revolution abolished slavery in Haiti and established its independence from France, it affected surrounding colonies in profound and unexpected ways. Ada Ferrer‘s new book Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution (Camb...

In the mid-1950s, Venezuela’s military government razed a massive slum settlement in the heart of Caracas and replaced it with what was at the time one of Latin America’s largest public housing projects. When the dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez was overt...

Due in large part to sensationalist representations in contemporary media and politics, the U.S.-Mexico border is popularly understood as a space of illegal activity defined by threats of foreign intrusion including: undocumented migration,

Historically, Venezuela is known as one of the most stable Latin American nations of the twentieth century. The subsequent discovery of oil transformed Venezuela into a petrostate. Yet wealth inequality dramatically increased.

Kevin O’Neill‘s fascinating book Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala (University of California Press, 2015) traces the efforts of multi-million dollar programs aimed at state security through gang prevention in Guatemala.

Cesar Chavez founded a labor union. Launched a movement. And inspired a generation. Two Decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant Latino figure in U.S. history.” So reads the inside flap ofMiriam Pawel’s new biography The Crusades of...

Brazilian society is rife with inequality. In her brilliant new book The Color of Modernity: Sao Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2015), Barbara Weinstein argues that one of the sources of enduring inequality is...