Latin America

The Allure and Power of an Idea

Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780226705200, 9780226443065
• eBook ISBN: 9780226443232
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historiography
• Index: History

"Latin America" is a concept firmly entrenched in its philosophical, moral, and historical meanings. And yet, Mauricio Tenorio-Trillo argues in this landmark book, it is an obsolescent racial-cultural idea that ought to have vanished long ago with the banishment of racial theory. Latin America: The Allure and Power of an Idea makes this case persuasively.

Tenorio-Trillo builds the book on three interlocking steps: first, an intellectual history of the concept of Latin America in its natural historical habitat—mid-nineteenth-century redefinitions of empire and the cultural, political, and economic intellectualism; second, a serious and uncompromising critique of the current "Latin Americanism"—which circulates in United States–based humanities and social sciences; and, third, accepting that we might actually be stuck with "Latin America," Tenorio-Trillo charts a path forward for the writing and teaching of Latin American history. Accessible and forceful, rich in historical research and specificity, the book offers a distinctive, conceptual history of Latin America and its many connections and intersections of political and intellectual significance. Tenorio-Trillo's book is a masterpiece of interdisciplinary scholarship.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• ONE  /  The Connotations of an Idea
• TWO  /  Iberismo and Latinité
• THREE  /  The Question of Brazil
• FOUR  /  Latino/a and Latin America
• FIVE  /  Singing Latinoamérica
• SIX  /  US-Centered Latin America—Part 1
• SEVEN  /  US-Centered Latin America—Part 2
• EIGHT  /  “Latin America” Abides: But How Should Historians Speak It?
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index