America, América

A New History of the New World

In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Grandin reveals how the United States and Latin America were forged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other. America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest—the greatest mortality event in human history—through the eighteenth-century wars for independence; the Monroe Doctrine; the world wars, coups, and revolutions of the twentieth century and beyond.

Grandin’s book sheds new light on well-known historical figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, as well as lesser-known actors such as Jorge Gaitán, whose unsolved murder inaugurated the rise of cold war political terror. At once comprehensive and accessible, this monumental work of scholarship shows that centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy not only helped shape the political identities of the Western Hemisphere but also the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world.