This volume offers a novel history of the making of political and socio-economic elites in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Latin America, with particular attention to the period before 1950.

Bringing together fourteen chapters by leading scholars and early career historians based in Britain, Europe, and Latin America, the book develops a framework for understanding elite formation as a dynamic historical process shaped by both structures and everyday practices. Its contributors examine elite ascent, transformation, and decline alongside material culture, kinship, politics, sociability, manners, gender, and practices of distinction and legitimation. Moving beyond national narratives and assumptions about supposedly cohesive or unchanging elites, the volume explores how elite groups were formed, challenged, and transformed across different Latin American societies. Its four thematic sections combine historiographical and theoretical reflection with comparative and empirically grounded studies, revealing both shared patterns and significant regional variation.

Destined to Rule will be essential reading for scholars and students of Latin American history and Cultural Studies.

Luis Gabriel Galán-Guerrero, DPhil in History, University of Oxford (2023), is Assistant Professor at the School of Management, Universidad de los Andes, Colombia. His research examines the political, social, and economic elites of modern Britain and Colombia. His work has appeared in international journals including Latin American Research Review, Anuario de Historia de América Latina, Journal of Latin American Studies, and The Historical Journal.