South America

In Patria: Lost Countries of South America, Laurence Blair explores nine nations, dissolved or imagined, and what they tell us about Latin America.

Uruguay was the only nation where fighting a duel in defence of honour was perfectly legal for most of the 20th century. Why?

Eli and the Octopus: The CEO Who Tried to Reform One of the World’s Most Notorious Corporations by Matt García is a human story amid mergers, sales, profits and losses.

Older than their Egyptian counterparts, the preserved remains of Andean peoples fascinated 19th-century Europe, leading to a ‘bone stampede’ for Inca mummies. But to what end?

Was the subjugation of indigenous peoples a just means to expedite Christianity? On 15 August 1550, a humanist scholar and a Dominican friar debated. 

The CIA has veered far from the purpose for which it was founded. Intended to gather and collate intelligence, it became instead a secretive organisation accountable to no one, which had disastrous consequences for Latin America. 

The impact and long-term legacy of Uruguay’s progressive leader. 

At the beginning of the 20th century Argentina was a major economic power. That all changed with the Great Depression.  

What can be known about Peru’s pre-Incan civilisation, the Chachapoya people or ‘Warriors of the Clouds’?

If we are to better understand the actions of men such as Hernán Cortés, we must place them in the context of a medieval world view that predated the nation state.