Book Review: Latin American Studies: The Multifaced History of a Rebellious Academic Field

• Author: Felipe Antunes de Oliveira
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221142329
• Published date: 01 January 2023
• Date: 01 January 2023
• Subject Matter: Book Reviews

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X221142329

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 248, Vol. 50 No. 1, January 2023, 292–295

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X221142329

© 2023 Latin American Perspectives

292

Book Review

Latin American Studies

The Multifaced History of a Rebellious Academic Field

by

Felipe Antunes de Oliveira

Ronald H. Chilcote Latin American Studies and the Cold War. London: Rowman and

Littleeld, 2022.

“Latin America” is an unusual research object. Perhaps more than with other objects

of social inquiry, it is impossible to separate scholarly knowledge about Latin America

from the conditions of production of that knowledge. In fact, the very process of doing

research in and about the region changes and challenges the researcher. Latin America

is an object that talks back, sometimes asking uncomfortable questions about the

researcher’s motivations and her social and political positionality.

Latin American Studies and the Cold War was intended by its editor, Ronald Chilcote,

as a “historical” and “pedagogical” collection of essays: “historical in providing back-

ground to the origins and evolution of Latin American studies and pedagogical as a

foundation for those desiring to study Latin America” (15). The 10 contributions in this

edited volume end up going far beyond the editor’s intention. More than presenting the

most complete global history of Latin American studies to date, they reveal the dialecti-

cal process of the constitution of a transdisciplinary and inherently critical field under

the difficult conditions posed by the Cold War on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Recounting the origins and evolution of Latin American studies in the United States,

the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Germany, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union,

China, and Cuba, this volume shows over and over again that narrow imperialist, colo-

nial, or economically motivated scholarship has always been contested by newer gen-

erations of Latin Americanists committed to actually understanding Latin America in

its complexity and contributing to its social and political emancipation rather than serv-

ing top-down imperialist, geopolitical, or commercial designs.

As is candidly recognized by Chilcote, U.S. Latin American studies has imperialist

roots in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 and the annexation of former Mexican and Spanish

territories and the creation of different forms of declared and undeclared colonies and

protectorates in Central America and the Caribbean. Since its inception, the field has

never been far from U.S. state power. It is no surprise, therefore, that the consolidation

of Latin American studies as an academic field in the 1950s and 1960s went hand in

hand with strategic geopolitical calculations in the context of the Cold War. Important

centers for Latin American studies such as Stanford trained military personnel and

contributed directly and indirectly to the CIA. Whereas the Cold War led to the expan-

sion of government investment and interest in the field, opening new research possi-

Felipe Antunes de Oliveira is a lecturer in global governance and international development at

Queen Mary University of London.

1142329LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X221142329Antunes de Oliveira/BOOK REVIEW

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