Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000

While the rise and abolition of slavery and ongoing race relations are central themes of the history of the United States, the African diaspora actually had a far greater impact on Latin and Central America. More than ten times as many Africans came to Spanish and Portuguese America as the
United States.

In this, the first history of the African diaspora in Latin America from emancipation to the present, George Reid Andrews deftly synthesizes the history of people of African descent in every Latin American country from Mexico and the Caribbean to Argentina. He examines how African peooples and
their descendants made their way from slavery to freedom and how they helped shape and responded to political, economic, and cultural changes in their societies. Individually and collectively they pursued the goals of freedom, equality, and citizenship through military service, political parties,
civic organizations, labor unions, religious activity, and other avenues.

Spanning two centuries, this tour de force should be read by anyone interested in Latin American history, the history of slavery, and the African diaspora, as well as the future of Latin America.


"Do not be fooled by its essential readability; this book belongs on the same shelf as the venerable Cambridge general histories...Essential. All college collections."--J. Rosenthal, SUNY College at Oneonta

"Andrews' Afro-Latin American is a compelling historical narrative...Such a work is long overdue."--Dwame Dixon, Latin American Research Review

"The title and the text of the book may be brief, but Reid Andrews' latest work is an impressively thorough survey of the experiences of Afro-Latin Americans from the independence era to the present. In 200 pages he places the experiences of the 'black' and 'brown' descendents of the area's slaves
in the major political and economic developments of the time, and traces how they have both affected and been affected by those developments. Coherently presented and clearly written, this will probably remain the definitive overview of the history of modern Afro-Latin America for years to
come."--The Americas

"Afro-Latin America is a deftly balanced and impressively nuanced study that is remarkable for its geographical span, covering the area (except for the non-Hispanic Caribbean) from Mexico to Argentina. This highly accessible, magisterially authoritative account fills a long-standing void in the
bibliography for Latin American Studies, American Cultures and the history of the Americas in general. Insightful, intellectually provocative, and engagingly written, this book should find a wide audience among both specialists and non-specialists."--Franklin W. Knight, Johns Hopkins University

"George Reid Andrews's tour de force draws on a breath-taking range of scholarship published in and on Latin America to make a powerful argument about the contributions of blacks and mulattos to national and regional histories."--American Historical Review

"George Reid Andrews has drawn a rich array of scholarship into a splendid historical synthesis, upon which he builds his own innovative interpretation. Conveying the texture of lived experience for people of African descent in Latin America, while exploring the dynamics of historical change, this
book is a superb accomplishment."--Rebecca J. Scott, University of Michigan

"Andrews has managed to rescue from what had traditionally been the shadows of Latin American historiography the modern history of Afro-Latins. By doing so he has started us on the needed road to a more comprehenseive discussion of race and nation in the American hemisphere."--American
Quarterly