Now in its fourth edition, this leading reader has been updated with the aim of tightening the focus of each chapter on a major interpretive problem. This edition includes an entirely new chapter, “Historical Memory”, which allows readers to revisit the era of the Cold War from a contemporary perspective, and the chapters on nationalism and globalization have been thoroughly revised. The book continues to offer a rich variety of materials that can be tailored to the needs of individual instructors. By focusing each chapter on a single interpretive problem, the book painlessly engages students in document analysis and introduces them to historiography. With its innovative combination of primary and secondary sources and editorial analysis, this text is designed specifically to stimulate critical thinking in a wide range of courses on Latin American history since independence.