Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000 [Paperback]

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 Americanis 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 lsĒ