America, América
Greg Grandin
'Dazzling. Mind-altering. World-changing. A once-in-a-generation contribution' NAOMI KLEIN
'Sweeping and provocative... groundbreaking' AMITAV GHOSH
'Will transform your understanding of the modern world' JONATHAN KENNEDY
From a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes the first definitive history of the Western hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both continents.
The story of the United States’ unique sense of itself was forged facing south – no less than Latin America’s was indelibly stamped by the looming colossus to the north.
In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Professor Greg Grandin reveals how the Americas emerged from constant, turbulent engagement with each other, shedding new light on well-known historical figures like Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar and Woodrow Wilson, as well as lesser-known actors such as the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who almost lost his head in the French Revolution and conspired with Alexander Hamilton to free America from Spain.
America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest – the greatest mortality event in human history – through the eighteenth-century wars for independence and the Monroe Doctrine, to the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century. This monumental work of scholarship fundamentally changes our understanding of Spanish and English colonialism, slavery and racism, the rise of universal humanism, and the role of social democracy in staving off authoritarian impulses.
At once comprehensive and accessible, America, América shows how the United States and Latin America together shaped the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world. Drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World.
'Masterful and erudite yet absolutely riveting' ADA FERRER
'A major and desperately needed synthesis of the Americas' NED BLACKHAWK
'An awe-inspiring masterpiece' SAMUEL MOYN
* Professor Greg Grandin won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction in 2020 with his book The End of the Myth.
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About Greg Grandin
Reviews for America, América
Naomi Klein, bestselling author of Doppelganger One of the best historians today at writing for both scholars and the general public. This is an extraordinarily ambitious book... America, América reads at times as the historical equivalent of the great epic novels of Gabriel García Márquez.
Irish Times
A fascinating, insightful book that will transform your understanding of Latin America's crucial role in the rise of the United States and the making of the modern world.
Jonathan Kennedy, author of Pathogenesis In this sweeping and provocative work, Greg Grandin provides a groundbreaking reinterpretation of the intertwined histories of the two Americas, foregrounding Latin American resistance to the hegemony of the United States. This is a compelling new vision of the relationship between the two continents.
Amitav Ghosh, author of the bestselling Ibis Trilogy and Smoke and Ashes In America, América, Greg Grandin advances an urgent vision of the relational history of the Western hemisphere. Adding to his already extraordinary corpus of works and reinterpreting five centuries in broad and beautiful strokes, it ends with a chilling conclusion about the diplomatic and moral failures of our current politics and its return to unilateralism and deliberate misunderstandings of the past. A major and desperately needed synthesis of the Americas and the making of modernity.
Ned Blackhawk, author of National Book Award-winning The Rediscovery of America America, América is the best kind of book: masterful and erudite yet absolutely riveting. By considering the long, sweeping story of Latin America and the United States in the same frame, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin has given us a novel and necessary understanding of a deeply entwined history that is sure to surprise readers, not least because he shows convincingly and urgently how a different past—and with it a different, better present—might have been possible.
Ada Ferrer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cuba: An American History Here is American history told as it never has been told before, full of staggering violence and loss, unforgettable villains and heroes, and the courageous endurance of the poor multitudes, so many sources of inspiration. Beautifully written, this brilliantly researched and reasoned book helps account for the sorry state of the present while offering historical lessons on how we might reach a better future.”
Francisco Goldman, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Monkey Boy In his awe-inspiring masterpiece, Greg Grandin shows how hemispheric relationships have defined the history of the United States for five centuries. Latin Americans did more than decry our failures to live up to the new world’s revolutionary ideals. As our country ascended to hegemon in the last century, our neighbors pushed—in part because of their unequal might and wealth—for the reimagination of how the globe itself ought to be governed.
Samuel Moyn, author of Liberalism Against Itself Scintillating . . . It’s a monumental new view of the New World.
Publishers Weekly (starred review)
A passionate plea for a re-evaluation of the place of Spanish America... written with great flair and imagination, scattered with scintillating turns of phrase…as Grandin brilliantly shows, the USA still has much to learn from its neighbours in the south.
Anthony Pagden
Literary Review