Customer Reviews

Contested Ground: Comparative Frontiers on the Northern and Southern Edges of the Spanish Empire (Southwest Center)

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This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.

This book should become a major contribution to Latin American studies, because it provides fresh perspectives on topics we'd thought we already knew well. It does so by relating Latin America to vital issues in history, notably recent research on frontier history, "the new Western history," & themes of race, class & gender. The chapter by Susan Socolow, discussing Argentine frontier women & thus engendering the history of the gauchos, is particularly strong, but so are most of the others. One drawback is that coverage is largely limited to the far margins of Spanish America (northern Mexico & Rio de la Plata regions), when there is plenty of work to do on the frontiers of core areas of Spain's New World empire, e.g. Peru & Bolivia. (There is some fine material on Brazil, but the book's main emphasis is on Spanish America.) Nevertheless, this work definitely advances understanding of important aspects of Latin American history.