Disciplinary Conquest : U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900–1945

Ricardo D. Salvatore

• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781478091219
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Latin American & Caribbean History
• Index: History

In Disciplinary Conquest Ricardo D. Salvatore rewrites the origin story of Latin American studies by tracing the discipline's roots back to the first half of the twentieth century. Salvatore focuses on the work of five representative U.S. scholars of South America—historian Clarence Haring, geographer Isaiah Bowman, political scientist Leo Rowe, sociologist Edward Ross, and archaeologist Hiram Bingham—to show how Latin American studies was allied with U.S. business and foreign policy interests. Diplomats, policy makers, business investors, and the American public used the knowledge these and other scholars gathered to build an informal empire that fostered the growth of U.S. economic, technological, and cultural hegemony throughout the hemisphere. Tying the drive to know South America to the specialization and rise of Latin American studies, Salvatore shows how the disciplinary conquest of South America affirmed a new mode of American imperial engagement.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction. Disciplinary Conquest
• One. South America as a Field of Inquiry
• Two. Five Traveling Scholars
• Three. Research Designs of Transnational Scope
• Four. Yale at Machu Picchu: Hiram Bingham, Peruvian Indigenistas, and Cultural Property
• Five. Hispanic American History at Harvard: Clarence H. Haring and Regional History for Imperial Visibility
• Six. Intellectual Cooperation: Leo S. Rowe, Democratic Government, and the Politics of Scholarly Brotherhood
• Seven. Geographic Conquest: Isaiah Bowman’s View of South America
• Eight. Worldly Sociology: Edward A. Ross and the Societies “South of Panama”
• Nine. U.S. Scholars and the Question of Empire
• Conclusion
• Notes
• References
• Index