Now in its fifth edition, this leading reader has been updated with new readings and visual sources. This edition includes an added final chapter on current social movements to help students reflect on the ecological realities that inform their world. In addition, the "Legacies of Colonialism" chapter has been restored to give students an understanding of the deep roots of the problems explored. Instead of a separate chapter on women and social change, women's voices have been woven more seamlessly throughout the book to reflect women's parity and equity in history. Covering key historical themes from independence to the present, the reader's unique "problems" organization provides a thematic complement to narrative accounts of modern Latin American history. By focusing each chapter on a single concept or interpretive problem-such as nationalism, slavery, or social revolution-the text engages students in the analysis of historical sources and, at the same time, introduces them to the twists and turns of historiography. With its innovative combination of primary and secondary sources and thoughtful editorial analysis, this text is designed specifically to stimulate critical thinking in a wide range of courses on Latin American history since independence.

Now in its fifth edition, this leading reader has been updated with new readings and visual sources. This edition includes an added final chapter on current social movements to help students reflect on the ecological realities that inform their world. In addition, the "Legacies of Colonialism" chapter has been restored to give students an understanding of the deep roots of the problems explored. Instead of a separate chapter on women and social change, women's voices have been woven more seamlessly throughout the book to reflect women's parity and equity in history. Covering key historical themes from independence to the present, the reader's unique "problems" organization provides a thematic complement to narrative accounts of modern Latin American history. By focusing each chapter on a single concept or interpretive problem-such as nationalism, slavery, or social revolution-the text engages students in the analysis of historical sources and, at the same time, introduces them to the twists and turns of historiography. With its innovative combination of primary and secondary sources and thoughtful editorial analysis, this text is designed specifically to stimulate critical thinking in a wide range of courses on Latin American history since independence.

By the mid-nineteenth century, efforts to modernize and industrialize Mexico City had the unintended consequence of exponentially increasing the risk of fire while also breeding a culture of fear. Through an array of archival sources, Anna Rose Alexander argues that fire became a catalyst for social change, as residents mobilized to confront the problem. Advances in engineering and medicine soon fostered the rise of distinct fields of fire-related expertise while conversely, the rise of fire-profiteering industries allowed entrepreneurs to capitalize on crisis. City on Fire demonstrates that both public and private engagements with fire risk highlight the inequalities that characterized Mexican society at the turn of the twentieth century.