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Studying the History of Latin America: A Case of Hemispheric Convergence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 October 2022

Thomas E. Skidmore
Thomas E. Skidmore*
Affiliation:
Brown University
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      The belief survives among us
      [Latin Americans] that United States
      scholars would write better histories
      of Latin America if they studied
      less and invented more.
    Daniel Cosío VillegasHistory and the Social Sciences in Latin America

This article will analyze the way in which U.S. historians' writing on Latin America, especially on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has been influenced by the changing relationship between the United States and Latin America. It will also trace more briefly the changing approaches of historians from Latin America. In my view, the two groups have taken different routes but have arrived at much the same destination.

Type
Research Article
Information
Latin American Research Review , Volume 33 , Issue 1 , 1998 , pp. 105 - 128
Copyright
Copyright © 1998 by the University of Texas Press

Footnotes

∗

The original version of this article was written for a June 1995 conference, “The State of Historical Writing in North America,” sponsored by the Department of History at Brown University and the Ministry of Education and Culture of the Republic of San Marino and held in San Marino, Italy. I am grateful to Anthony Molho for involving me in the conference. Its aim was to emphasize the unique aspects of writing by U.S. historians on various areas of the world. I received valuable suggestions on that version from more than three dozen Latin Americanist history colleagues. Woodrow Borah and Robert Potash made valuable suggestions at an earlier stage. Felicity Skidmore worked her usual editorial magic, and Healan Gaston and Frances Mejía supplied excellent research assistance. Lisabeth Pimentel aided greatly in the final revision. The anonymous LARR readers made many valuable suggestions. Final responsibility is, of course, mine.

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