Comprised of 24 newly commissioned chapters, this defining reference volume on Latin America introduces English-language readers to the debates, traditions, and sensibilities that have shaped the study of this diverse region.

• Contributors include some of the most prominent figures in Latin American and Latin Americanist anthropology
• Offers previously unpublished work from Latin America scholars that has been translated into English explicitly for this volume
• Includes overviews of national anthropologies in Mexico, Cuba, Peru, Argentina, Ecuador, Bolivia, Colombia, and Brazil, and is also topically focused on new research
• Draws on original ethnographic and archival research
• Highlights national and regional debates
• Provides a vivid sense of how anthropologists often combine intellectual and political work to address the pressing social and cultural issues of Latin America

Deborah Poole is Professor of Anthropology in Latin American Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of Peru: Time of Fear (with Gerardo Renique, 1992), Unruly Order: Violence, Power, and Regional Identity in the High Provinces of Peru (1994), Vision, Race, and Modernity: A Visual Economy of the Andean Image World (1997), and Anthropology in the Margins of the State (coedited with Veena Das, 2004), as well as over 30 articles.