Offers an accessible explanation of the labyrinth of politics that America faces in the little-understood and politically explosive countries of Central America

Central America: The real stakes : understanding Central America before it's too late

Politics & Social Sciences

Langley, Lester D.

Politics & Government

Dorsey Press

The Americas in the Age of Revolution: 1750-1850

History

Americas

Yale University Press

This magisterial work is a comparative history of three important revolutions in the Americas: the American Revolution in 1776, the 1791 slave revolt in the French colony that became Haiti, and the prolonged Spanish-American struggle for independence that ended a half century later. Lester Langley describes the movements and events that led to these wars of independence, explaining why revolution took one form in one place and a different form in another. Langley examines the political and social tensions reverberating throughout British, French, and Spanish America, pointing out the characteristics that distinguished each upheaval from the others: the impact of place or location on the course of revolution; the dynamics of race and color as well as class; the relation between leaders and followers; the strength of counterrevolutionary movements; and, especially, the way that militarization of society during war affected the new governments in the postrevolutionary era. Langley argues that an understanding of the legacy of the revolutionary age sheds tremendous light on the political condition of the Americas today: virtually every modern political issue―the relationship of the state to the individual, the effectiveness of government, the liberal promise for progress, and the persistence of color as a critical dynamic in social policy―was central to the earlier period.

In this wide-ranging book, historian Lester D. Langley offers a fresh interpretation of the history of the modern Western hemisphere since the mid-nineteenth century. He evaluates the dynamics of hemispheric history, commencing with the articulation of the "two Americas" (Theodore Roosevelt's America and the contrasting America described by Cuban revolutionary, essayist, and poet JosŽ Mart') and culminating with recent controversial efforts to forge a united hemisphere. Tracing the interactions and influences among the nations of South, Central, and North America, including Canada, Langley departs from other accounts of the past 150 years. He argues that the seedtime for today's Americas was not the Cold War but the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also contends that it is not what the countries and people of the Americas have in common that binds them; instead, their cultural, political, and economic conflicts tie them together. Comprehensive and balanced, this history of the nations of the Americas offers new insights into both the past and the future of inter-American relations.

The Americas in the Modern Age

In this wide-ranging book, historian Lester D. Langley offers a fresh interpretation of the history of the modern Western hemisphere since the mid-nineteenth century. He evaluates the dynamics of hemispheric history, commencing with the articulation of the “two Americas” (Theodore Roosevelt’s America and the contrasting America described by Cuban revolutionary, essayist, and poet José Martí) and culminating with recent controversial efforts to forge a united hemisphere. 
Tracing the interactions and influences among the nations of South, Central, and North America, including Canada, Langley departs from other accounts of the past 150 years. He argues that the seedtime for today’s Americas was not the Cold War but the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He also contends that it is not what the countries and people of the Americas have in common that binds them; instead, their cultural, political, and economic conflicts tie them together. Comprehensive and balanced, this history of the nations of the Americas offers new insights into both the past and the future of inter-American relations.

Central America: The Real Stakes. Understanding Central America Before It's Too Late

Teen & Young Adult

Crown

A study of the growing Mexican population in America suggests that, although Mexican culture persists in remaining independent of mainstream America, the two societies have become interdependent

Mexamerica: Two Countries, One Future

Social Sciences

The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934

Dorsey Pr

This book should be of interest to undergraduate courses in American history.

Central America: The Real Stakes : Understanding Central America Before It's Too Late

This compelling biography offers a unique perspective on the life and career of one of Latin America's most famous―and most adulated―historical figures. Departing from the conventional, narrow treatment of Bolívar's role in the Spanish-American wars of independence (1810–1825), leading historian Lester D. Langley frames this remarkable figure as the quintessential Venezuelan rebel, who by circumstance and sheer will rose to be the continent's most noted revolutionary and liberator. In the process, he became both a unifying and a divisive presence whose symbolic influence remains powerful even today. Twice Bolívar gained power, twice he confronted a formidable counterrevolution, twice he was compelled to flee. His ultimate tactic of using slave and mixed-race troops aroused both the admiration and fear of U.S. leaders and became a topic of heated discussion in the critical debates of 1817 and 1818 over U.S. policy toward the Spanish-American wars as well as the arguments over the admission of Missouri as a state in 1820–1821 and the U.S. decision to participate in the ill-fated Congress of Panama. Although he earned the sobriquet of the "George Washington" of South America, Bolívar in victory became more conservative and critical of the democratic tide of the era. Unlike Washington, Bolívar was forced into exile, the victim of his own ambitions and the fears of others. In his tragic end, he symbolized the glorious warrior so consumed by his own ambition and hatreds that he was destroyed. In death, he became a cult figure whose life and meaning casts a long shadow over modern Venezuelan history. As the author convincingly explains, he remains the most relevant figure of the revolutionary age in the Americas.

Simón Bolívar: Venezuelan Rebel, American Revolutionary

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Langley, Lester D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Langley, Lester D.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Langley, Lester D.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Central America: The real stakes : understanding Central America before it's too late

The Americas in the Age of Revolution: 1750-1850

The Americas in the Age of Revolution: 1750-1850

The Americas in the Modern Age

The Americas in the Modern Age

Central America: The Real Stakes. Understanding Central America Before It's Too Late

Mexamerica: Two Countries, One Future

The Banana Wars: United States Intervention in the Caribbean, 1898-1934

Central America: The Real Stakes : Understanding Central America Before It's Too Late

Simón Bolívar: Venezuelan Rebel, American Revolutionary