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When Maria de la Concepción boarded the ship out of Lisbon bound for Brazil, she never could have anticipated her eventual challenges. After providing an enslaved woman in Mexico with a love potion, Concepción was brought before the inquisition on sorcery charges in 1668. Two hundred and fifty years later, the extended Estevanovich family faced […]
Read MoreIn 2000, while working in the rare books collection of Mexico’s National Library, I encountered something that caught me off guard. As I flipped through the card catalogue of the Fondo Reservado, I noticed a remarkable increase in commemorative sermons printed during the first two decades of the eighteenth century. Printers in New Spain produced […]
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Why do governments get overthrown? Why are many political systems chronically unstable? The Coup Trap in Latin America answers these questions by explaining why political systems fall prey to endless cycle of golpes and contra golpes. It provides an innovative explanation of why officers and civilians (“the coup coalition”) overthrow presidents – and will be […]
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Those who watched the televised images of COP30 in November 2025 could not have missed the striking presence of Indigenous peoples in the Brazilian city of Belém. They were there to insist that their role in conserving the Amazon be recognised at the heart of global climate negotiations. As the traditional custodians of the region […]
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During the 1960s and 1970s, most Latin American republics saw their democratic systems ousted by ruthless military dictatorships. Whether in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, or Uruguay, these regimes alleged to purge society from communism – thus averting an imminent “civil war” – only thereafter to enact profound neo-liberal reforms in their economies. “Bureaucratic Authoritarianism” is how […]
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I have been writing about Cuban music and popular culture for some time, as an outsider. It is a fraught position: being based in the United States, strongly attracted to Cuban heritage, trying to undertake rigorous research and pursue sensitive topics while frequently being perceived as someone who may have an ax to grind as […]
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The past ten years have been surprising, to say the least, for observers of the Latin American right. There was a time where the left was the star of the show in the region; in the 2000s and 2010s, leaders of the “Pink Tide,” such as Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Evo Morales, and Michelle […]
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Capable states that enforce the rule of law, secure property rights, and provide public goods are prerequisites for development, but where do they originate? Last year’s Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to scholars who argued for the role of colonial institutions. Opportune as the reckoning with colonialism might be, it has diverted our attention […]
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