New Approaches to Latin American History

Front Cover
Richard Graham, Peter H. Smith
University of Texas Press, Aug 27, 2014 - History - 290 pages

New Approaches to Latin American History incorporates methods and concepts from the social sciences without abandoning a distinctively historical approach. A collection of original essays by distinguished younger scholars, it proposes original concepts and methods for analyzing crucial problems in Latin American history.

Using as examples such subjects as salvery, dictatorship, immigration, and the relationship between land ownership and political power, the contributors show how approaches and techniques from psychology, political science, economics. and sociology can be applied to historical studies. The papers attempt to explain the thematic and substantive importance of the particular problems at hand; describe and evaluate standard approaches to them; propose original hypotheses; suggest methods for testing the hypotheses; or indicate major methodological or conceptual difficulties that have so far hampered such work.

Despite their diversity of content, the papers show strong underlying unities. First, they all point to the need for placing institutions and actions in a broad societal context. The authurs present an implicit, cumulative argument against the excessive isolation of historical phenomena. Second, they demonstrate the utility of interdisciplinary research. Third, they issue an implicit call for rigorous comparative analysis. The propositions formulated in these essays can best tested and modified in comparative fashion.

Ultimately this book deals with the exposition of a research style: a style based on systematic doubt, an awareness of the need for conceptual rigor, and a willingness to try new methodologies. For this reason it is of interest to historians in every field as well as to students of Latin America.

 

Selected pages

Contents

Introduction
Problems
Bases of Political Alignment in Early Republican Spanish
Political Power and Landownership in NineteenthCentury
An Approach to Regionalism
A Critical
Approaches to Immigration History
Psychoanalysis and Latin American History
Political Legitimacy in Spanish America
Glossary
Notes on Contributors
Copyright

Other editions - View all

New Approaches to Latin American History
Richard Graham,Peter H. Smith
Limited preview - 2012
New Approaches to Latin American History
Richard Graham,Peter H. Smith
Snippet view - 1974
New Approaches to Latin American History
Richard Graham,Peter H. Smith
Snippet view - 1974

Common terms and phrases

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About the author (2014)

Richard Graham is Frances Higginbotham Nalle Centennial Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Texas at Austin.

Peter H. Smith is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and

Simon Bolivar Professor of Latin American Studies at the University of California at San Diego.

Bibliographic information

TitleNew Approaches to Latin American History
EditorsRichard Graham, Peter H. Smith
PublisherUniversity of Texas Press, 2014
ISBN1477300864, 9781477300862
Length290 pages
Subjects ›  › 

History / General
History / Historiography
History / Latin America / General
  
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