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Greg Grandin
America, América: A New History of the New World Kindle Edition
by Greg Grandin (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars (326)
'An original and outstanding new history of the New World... Magisterial' Spectator
'An extraordinarily ambitious book . . . America, América reads at times as the historical equivalent of the great epic novels of Gabriel García Márquez' Irish Times
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER, SHORTLISTED FOR THE CUNDILL HISTORY PRIZE, LONGLISTED FOR THE PEN AMERICA LITERARY AWARDS
The first definitive history of the Western hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both continents - perfect for readers of How the World Made the West.
The story of the United States’ unique sense of itself was forged facing south – no less than Latin America’s was indelibly stamped by the looming colossus to the north.
In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Professor Greg Grandin reveals how the Americas emerged from constant, turbulent engagement with each other, shedding new light on well-known historical figures like Bartolomé de las Casas, Simón Bolívar and Woodrow Wilson, as well as lesser-known actors such as the Venezuelan Francisco de Miranda, who almost lost his head in the French Revolution and conspired with Alexander Hamilton to free America from Spain.
America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest – the greatest mortality event in human history – through the eighteenth-century wars for independence and the Monroe Doctrine, to the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century. This monumental work of scholarship fundamentally changes our understanding of Spanish and English colonialism, slavery and racism, the rise of universal humanism, and the role of social democracy in staving off authoritarian impulses.
At once comprehensive and accessible, America, América shows how the United States and Latin America together shaped the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world. Drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World.
‘Compelling and written with zest…Don’t be surprised if he wins another Pulitzer’ Financial Times
'Dazzling. Mind-altering. World-changing. A once-in-a-generation contribution' NAOMI KLEIN
'Sweeping and provocative... groundbreaking' AMITAV GHOSH
'Will transform your understanding of the modern world' JONATHAN KENNEDY
'Masterful and erudite yet absolutely riveting' ADA FERRER
'A major and desperately needed synthesis of the Americas' NED BLACKHAWK
'An awe-inspiring masterpiece' SAMUEL MOYN
* Professor Greg Grandin won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-fiction in 2020 with his book The End of the Myth. America, América has been shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize and is a finalist for the Kirkus Prize.
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Review
"As a leading historian of the western hemisphere attests, the history of the US--especially from independence to the second world war--is tightly tied to the countries to its south. America, América focuses on these vital connections. Greg Grandin's argument is compelling and written with zest. His history is punchy, the array of sources is vast, and the narrative pace is superb." --Financial Times
"Historian Greg Grandin's audacious new book . . . will, for many readers, upend conceptions of the hemisphere . . . each day's headlines further confirm the deep-rooted patterns that his brilliant and urgently needed history traces . . . America, América pursues its course across the centuries with verve, superb pacing, and impressive delicacy of touch." --Esther Allen, Los Angeles Review of Books
"A lone, expansionist United States pitted against a collective of sovereign American nations--this rivalry has played a key role in creating the modern world, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Greg Grandin argues in his sweeping new book, America, América . . . The moral center of gravity of Grandin's book is tilted toward Latin America. It is the lesser-known story, and one that offers crucial insights to the United States and the wider world." --Ieva Jusionyte, Los Angeles Review of Books
"Grandin makes a persuasive case . . . If The End of the Myth helped make sense of the first Trump Administration, America, América sheds light on the expansionist ambitions Trump has voiced during his second term . . . In America, América, he argues that, if the promise of social-democratic movements is to be realized, it will be because North and South Americans come together to believe in our shared fate as Americans . . . Grandin suggests that historical struggles for social democracy across Latin America might serve as a model for a social-democratic movement of the future." --The New Yorker
"One of the best historians today at writing for both scholars and the general public. This is an extraordinarily ambitious book . . . America, América reads at times as the historical equivalent of the great epic novels of Gabriel García Márquez." --Irish Times
"Grandin has written a stirring new book . . . America, América shows how over the course of five centuries, America in the north and America in the south have shaped each other through war, conquest, competition and cooperation. Their intercontinental relationship has had implications for not only the Western Hemisphere but also the modern world . . . Grandin is such a terrific writer and perceptive historian that I was swept along by his enthralling narrative." --The New York Times
"Grandin makes a compelling case for the intricate connections tying the United States to its southern neighbors. In bright, fluid prose, the historian argues that Latin American political thought and diplomatic ideals have mightily influenced the more powerful northern country. . . . Grandin is distressed by the resurgence today of reactionary impulses in the United States. Yet he finds grounds for hope south of the United States, where 'more than 480 million Latin Americans, out of a total of 625 million, live under some kind of social democratic government.'" --Foreign Affairs
"This book, the best piece of nonfiction so far this year, corrects some of the lazy thinking about what America (the country) does and doesn't do, and clarifies what, exactly, is new about its Trump-led strategy of domination." --Semafor
"A sweeping, magisterial analysis of 300 years of conflicting geopolitical understandings of sovereignty that have defined Anglo-American and Spanish American relations . . . The relevance of this history cannot be overemphasized." --Science
"Historian and Pulitzer Prize winner Grandin brilliantly reexamines the development of the historical relationship between the United States and Latin America in this comprehensive volume . . . Grandin carefully and calmly traces a 500-year arc from the genocidal Spanish conquest to the coup-ridden 20th century . . . Weighty but not encyclopedic, argumentative but never overbearing, this monumental work of scholarship deserves pride of place in any historical collection that values reasonably argued discussion and deeply researched history." --Library Journal (starred review)
"An authoritative history of the debates and brutality that made our world." --Kirkus (starred review)
"Scintillating . . . It's a monumental new view of the New World." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Dazzling. Sweeping. Mind-altering. World-changing. This is a once-in-a-generation contribution destined to become our new reference for understanding the making of the modern world. With extraordinary depth, erudition and precision, Grandin avenges the dead and fights for the living." --Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of Doppelganger
"For nearly a century, historians have attempted to tell a 'common history' of 'Greater America, ' one that brings the history of the United States and Latin America together in a shared and durable conceptualization. In America, América, Greg Grandin does just this and advances an urgent vision of the relational history of the hemisphere. Adding to his already extraordinary corpus of works and reinterpreting five centuries in broad and beautiful strokes, it ends with a chilling conclusion about the diplomatic and moral failures of our current politics and its return to unilateralism and deliberate misunderstandings of the past. A major and desperately needed synthesis of the Americas and the making of modernity." --Ned Blackhawk, author of National Book Award-winning The Rediscovery of America
"America, América is the best kind of book: masterful and erudite yet absolutely riveting. By considering the long, sweeping story of Latin America and the United States in the same frame, acclaimed historian Greg Grandin has given us a novel and necessary understanding of a deeply entwined history that is sure to surprise readers, not least because he shows convincingly and urgently how a different past--and with it a different, better present--might have been possible." --Ada Ferrer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cuba: An American History
"Greg Grandin's America, América takes José Martí's famous essay, 'Nuestra América' and recasts it as a sweeping historical epic. Here is Our American history, told as it never has been told before, full of staggering violence and loss, unforgettable villains and heroes, and the courageous endurance of the poor multitudes, so many sources of inspiration. Beautifully written, this brilliantly researched and reasoned book helps account for the sorry state of the present while offering historical lessons on how we might reach a better future." --Francisco Goldman, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Monkey Boy
"In this sweeping and provocative work, Greg Grandin provides a groundbreaking reinterpretation of the intertwined histories of the two Americas, foregrounding Latin American resistance to the hegemony of the United States. This is a compelling new vision of the relationship between the two continents." --Amitav Ghosh, author of the bestselling Ibis Trilogy and Smoke and Ashes
"In his awe-inspiring masterpiece, Greg Grandin shows how hemispheric relationships have defined the history of the United States for five centuries. Latin Americans did more than decry our failures to live up to the new world's revolutionary ideals. As our country ascended to hegemon in the last century, our neighbors pushed--in part because of their unequal might and wealth--for the reimagination of how the globe itself ought to be governed." --Samuel Moyn, author of Liberalism Against Itself --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
About the Author
Greg Grandin is the author of The End of the Myth, which won the Pulitzer Prize; The Empire of Necessity, which won both the Bancroft and Beveridge prizes in American history; Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and a number of other widely acclaimed books. He is the Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University. --This text refers to the hardcover edition.
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America, América: A New History of the New WorldProduct details
ASIN : B0CTHTGXXP
Publisher : Transworld Digital
Accessibility : Learn more
Publication date : 24 April 2025
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Greg Grandin
Greg Grandin is the Peter V. and C. Vann Woodward Professor of History at Yale University and is the author of a number of prize-winning books, including "The End of the Myth: From the Frontier to the Border Wall in the Mind of America," which won the Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction. Other books include "Empire’s Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic," first published in 2005 and significantly revised and expanded in 2021, and "Kissinger’s Shadow: The Long Reach of America’s Most Controversial Statesman." "The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World," which won the Bancroft Prize in American History. Released in early 2014, "The Empire of Necessity" narrates the history of a slave-ship revolt that inspired Herman Melville’s other masterpiece, a short story titled “Benito Cereno.” Toni Morrison called this book a “deft penetration into the marrow of the slave industry… brilliant.” Maureen Corrigan on NPR’s Fresh Air named "The Empire of Necessity" as the best book of 2014. Grandin’s "Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford’s Forgotten Jungle City" was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in History, as well as for the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His most recent book "America, América: A New History of the New World," was a New York Times Bestseller.
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From Australia
Shane Hilton
5.0 out of 5 stars America, America.
Reviewed in Australia on 16 August 2025
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A thorough, well written history with interesting insights. Not only the past but intriguing insights, explanations that link to the modern day Americas.
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From other countries
Ken M
5.0 out of 5 stars Timely book!
Reviewed in Canada on 17 May 2026
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Detailed perspectives of contrasting, colonial expansions in North and South Americas. Captivating, awesome book.
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Klaraburla
5.0 out of 5 stars Awesome
Reviewed in Spain on 18 June 2025
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Awesome
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James Muncy
5.0 out of 5 stars A sweeping, eye-opening history that rewards every page
Reviewed in the United States on 27 October 2025
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This book is long, but absolutely worth the time and effort. I consider myself well-versed in history, yet I found myself learning something new in every chapter. Greg Grandin has an incredible ability to weave together political, social, and cultural threads into a captivating narrative that constantly challenged what I thought I knew about the Americas.
The writing is elegant and engaging, making even complex historical themes accessible without losing their depth. It’s not just a recounting of events—it’s a reinterpretation that connects the past to the present in meaningful ways.
If you’re interested in understanding the Americas as a whole—North, Central, and South—and how their intertwined histories shaped the modern world, this book is essential. Dense at times, but never dull. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants a deeper, richer understanding of the New World.
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Murdo Ritchie
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent item; delivered promptly.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 May 2025
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Excellent item; delivered promptly.
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dave23
5.0 out of 5 stars spannende Lektüre
Reviewed in Germany on 19 November 2025
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Als Nordamerikanist wusste ich einiges über die Entstehungsgeschichte der USA uns ihr Verhältnis zum südlichen Kontinent, aber praktisch nichts über die enge Zusammenarbeit zwischen den frühen anti-kolonialen Bewegungen in Nord und Süd und den regen Austausch, den es damals gab. Dieses Buch hat mir die Augen geöffnet. Die Ausführungen über den unterschiedlichen Umgang mit Ureinwohner und Sklaverei sind wirklich spannend und geben eine Jahrhunderte währende Debatte wider, in der die katholische Kirche eine im Vergleich zu den Puritaner erstaunlich gute Figur macht. Das Buch steckt voller Überraschungen.
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Emilie Teresa Smith
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I have read in years!
Reviewed in Canada on 27 October 2025
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Grandin has really done it this time. A thorough telling of a story I thought I knew, as an Argentine-Canadian liberation theology practicing Anglican priest. I had only an outline of an understanding of Bolivar, the history of violence in Colombia, and especially the intricate details of US policy towards Latin America after the Second World War. Thank you Greg, for your incredible work on this, accessible to all.
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PaulS
4.0 out of 5 stars A great read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 10 June 2025
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
I am learning a lot from this book. Very interesting and easy to read. Four stars and not five because, in my opinion, it would have benefited from a timeline, many more illustrations (especially of the personalities involved), and most importantly-maps.
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David Lampron
5.0 out of 5 stars A worth while read!
Reviewed in the United States on 19 January 2026
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This a bit of a long haul, but well written, very informative, and a real eye opener. It chronicles five hundred years of mans brutality to his fellow man, for the short term gain of the few at the top. As it gets past the Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, it brings the US into the historical fold, stripping away all the favorable mythology of the US being the shining beacon on the hill. Maybe Grandin is a bit bios against the US, and for Latin America; I don't know enough to say, but it seams a fair assessment to me. Read for yourself and see what you think.
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Blackbird
5.0 out of 5 stars an extraordinary feat of scholarship
Reviewed in the United States on 27 July 2025
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This is an extraordinary book.
The author, an expert on U.S. and Central American history, has written the first history to integrate events occurring in the entire New World, from Arctic Canada to Tierra del Fuego, over 500 years. And how these were influenced and determined by events occurring in Western Europe.
The book is divided into 50 chapters and an Epilogue, which allows the 630 pages of text to flow gracefully across 5 centuries. The book is very well written and represents the best of academic scholarship and summarizes a massive literature to create a compelling story.
The author's style is authoritative yet informal enough to allow the text to remain fresh and interesting from beginning to end. I learned a lot by reading this book and highly recommend it to anyone interested in how decisions made by the few in positions of power affected the lives of millions and created the countries and economies that exist today.
This book is sure to be a contender for a Pulitzer.
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Aficion
4.0 out of 5 stars Insightful on historical relationship between USA and Latin America
Reviewed in the United States on 17 January 2026
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Recommended as possible text for in history of the Americas course. I would agree with this assessment, as it provides insight not found in common US history textbooks
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Will Berger
5.0 out of 5 stars Essential reading
Reviewed in the United States on 1 July 2025
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One of the best and most important reads I’ve experienced. He ties the five hundred year history to our present in ways that make real connections. His longitudinal approach that ties the Americas together is unique, maybe even groundbreaking. And he writes with such clarity! I don’t see anyone studying Latin America not making use of this book.
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Joe
5.0 out of 5 stars engaging and masterful
Reviewed in the United States on 5 May 2025
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A big picture view of the intertwined history of the Americas that I have really been looking for for years. An engaging read that tells a compelling story with the right amount of support. Treatment of the Mexican revolution is especially informative. A central theme is how the Latin countries out of their historic struggles with colonialism and capitalism influenced the development of international law, especially in this era of many independent states. Grandin has done it again, a masterful read.
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David Swanson
5.0 out of 5 stars Law, Not Crime, Has Come From South of the Border
Reviewed in the United States on 26 July 2025
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Not so much criminals as the foundations of the rule of law — that is what has infiltrated the United States from Latin America. That seems to be a major thread running through Greg Grandin’s wonderful new history of the hemisphere, America, América: A New History of the New World. It’s a book you can dive back into repeatedly, not to mention fantasize about someone compacting it into a short slideshow for the benefit of the President of the United States.
British settler colonists in North America had their preachers and writers, but those individuals had a tendency to pretend Native Americans were not real, did not exist, perhaps never had existed, or simply didn’t count for much on empty land, or didn’t count because they were to be pushed out or eliminated rather than lived with. Spain, in contrast, generated a tremendous raging debate between supporters and denouncers of its killing, robbery, theft, enslavement, and terrorizing of indigenous people. Spain broke new ground, according to Grandin, in producing criticism of its own atrocities as it conquered South America.
In very rough terms this is similar to the contrast between U.S. media noncoverage of the genocide in Gaza and Israeli media’s inclusion of denunciations of the same. It’s one thing to live where you can’t escape drunk country musicians singing about being free, and perhaps something else to live where you can hear voices saying some of the things that most need saying. In both cases, the brutal atrocities go on, but in one there are seeds of some future change planted.
Voices like those of Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas laid foundations for modern international law, but did so very differently from Dutch and English writers. The Spanish tradition is at least as tied up in religion as the English, and has certainly needed to evolve during these past four or five hundred years. But Grandin identifies a basis for a future pluralistic society even in the belief that populations were diverse yet all descended from Adam and Eve. One can also, I think, see in the tradition of public confessions something of a precursor of truth and reconciliation commissions. In Latin America, unlike the North, dying conquistadores in the sixteenth century commonly confessed their part in the Conquest and paid restitution. NB: They did not admit to having strayed from proper conquest behavior into illicit atrocities. Rather, they admitted to participation in a Conquest understood to have been wrong and evil in its totality.
Seen from a perspective that includes Latin America, Las Casas — who went beyond Erasmus, Moore, or anybody else — begins to look like the father of international legal standards applied equally to all of humanity, not to mention of self-determination and governance by the consent of the governed. He got there first. He drew the logical conclusions, such as the abolition of slavery. And he acted on those conclusions to as great an extent and for as long as perhaps any other person who has lived.
The world was not, even in the seventeenth century, strictly separated into different legal traditions. The English read Las Casas, but they often read him with an eye to understanding how evil the Spanish were in contrast to the English, or in order to get ideas for how to themselves be more evil toward the Irish. Perhaps they could have read him more in order to do as Las Casas recommended, more in order to outgrow dehumanization and division. Defining certain people as not really people was a skill that increased in English culture as colonization and slavery expanded.
Hugo Grotius read Vitoria, but — like Aquinas before him and like all “just war” theory — Grotius was after excuses for wars. War might be regulated, but not banned. John Locke drew heavily on Spanish writers like Juan de Mariana and José de Acosta, but he reached his own conclusions, including that land could be taken from anyone not farming it. For a great many years, Spanish writers denounced war and slavery as parts of the Conquest, whereas Locke, Smith, Hume, et alia, at best wrote rules to regulate such evils as war and slavery, leaving us to this day with a culture that hardly murmurs about the crime of war but chatters endlessly about “possible war crimes” — almost always only mysteriously “possible,” never verified.
Francisco de Miranda (1750-1816) and Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) sought a confederacy of independent nations in Latin America. The United States served as a partial inspiration but was not of much actual help. Thomas Jefferson’s house, just down the road from mine, had numerous books by Las Casas and other Spanish writers in it, yet he flipped their views upside down, declaring that “white” nations had the right to control non-white peoples in lands they claimed and to deny access to other “white” nations. He called this “a kind of international law for America.” The United States has sought its own unique “international law” from that day to this.
The Doctrine of Discovery — the idea that a European nation can claim any land not yet claimed by other European nations, regardless of what people already live there — dates back to the fifteenth century and the Catholic church, but it was put into U.S. law in 1823, the same year as Monroe’s fateful “Doctrine” speech. It was put there by Monroe’s lifelong friend, U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. The United States considered itself, perhaps alone outside of Europe, as possessing the same discovery privileges as European nations. Perhaps coincidentally, in December 2022 almost every nation on Earth signed an agreement to set aside 30% of the Earth’s land and sea for wildlife by the year 2030. The exceptions were only the United States and the Vatican, not the nations of Latin America.
While the U.S. had broken free of British rule, and thereby rid itself of a mother country moving rapidly toward the abolition of slavery, movements for independence from Spain in South America generally sought freedom from slavery as well as from foreign empire. The U.S. tradition of slave-owners like Patrick Henry making speeches about being metaphorically enslaved was a northern hypocrisy where revolution was a rich man’s game. Moves for independence in the south were to some extent more of a popular revolt. They were, at the very least, not a revolt to maintain slavery or to expand empire, and not to combine numerous colonies into one, at least not immediately. Rather, Bolivarianism amounted to a push to create simultaneously several free and independent nations, some through violence and some without it. By the early nineteenth century, there were nine of them, newly independent, or 10 counting Haiti.
Latin America was not yet called Latin America and was not some sort of flawless paradise. Wealth extremes (greater than in the U.S. of that day, though not than the U.S. of this day) and all kinds of cruelty persisted. But, not only was slavery being abolished, but something else of great potential was being created. Numerous new nations jointly developed means of nonviolently, legalistically, arbitrating boundary disputes — dealing nation to nation as equals and not enemies.
Bolivar proposed a Congress in Panama among sister nations that would
agree to mutual defense,
condemn Spain for the suffering it had caused in the New World (has the U.S. done that yet with regard to England?),
promote the independence of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Canary Islands, and the Philippines (the U.S. was supporting Spanish rule over Cuba as more likely to lead to later U.S. rule over Cuba),
repudiate the doctrines of discovery and conquest,
abolish slavery,
recognize Haiti, and
legalize agreed upon borders.
Here we see an early version of the League of Nations or the United Nations just beginning to come into being.
Slavery had already been ended — and without a horrific U.S.-style Civil War — in Chile, Bolivia, and parts of Mexico. Central America ended it in 1824. Colombia and Venezuela were ending it, but it persisted in Peru and Brazil.
In taking up such matters of domestic policy at an international gathering like the Panama Congress of 1826, something else — another grave evil in the world, one that afflicts the United States — was being prevented from ever being born in Latin America. This evil is the passionate aversion to anyone outside a nation having any say over what that nation does. When you read the Constitutions of various European nations today that describe transferring power to international institutions, you can just feel the veins bursting in the faces of outraged U.S. politicians. In 1826, vicious fury burst forth at the very idea that the United States would send anyone to a Congress in Panama to sit with potentially non-white people to decide anything about the sacred U.S. right to enslave human beings. In the words of Grandin, this “jolted the Age of Jackson into existence.” It hasn’t let up much since. The U.S. would later reject a League of Nations as one among equals and only join a United Nations over which it held a veto.
By 1844, Latin American statesmen had been working on theories and plans for international law for decades, and Juan Bautista Alberdi gave the name “American International Law” to a set of principles that included rejection of the doctrines of discovery and conquest, equality of nations despite their size, non-intervention, usi possidetis, and impartial arbitration. Alberdi also wrote a book in 1870, available free online in English, called The Crime of War. This is a book filled with hundreds of pages arguing almost the identical arguments that war abolitionists use today. It’s an outlawry book a half century before the movement to outlaw war. It’s a book making the case for neutrality (see page 262) perhaps a century before the power of neutrality was widely appreciated and a 150 years before it disastrously ceased to be. Latin American nations continued for years to push such a vision on the United States.
At the Hague peace conference of 1907, 18 of the 44 nations were from Latin America, and it was there that Latin American ideas of multilateralism and sovereignty are thought to have really taken hold.
Woodrow Wilson (U.S. president 1913-1921) may look in retrospect like mostly talk and not much action, the promising savior who didn’t save us, the warrior to end war who gave us more war, the Barack Obama of his day. But early Wilson, before World War I, had some substance, and some of the talk was well worth hearing, and a lot of it came from south of the U.S. border. Wilson was outraged by and sought to reverse his predecessor’s interference in Mexico. He also apologized to Colombia for the U.S. role in removing Panama from it, and paid Colombia $25 million for the loss. Wilson was unable to resolve crises in Mexico but did not make the usual U.S. move of reaching for larger weapons. Instead, he accepted a proposal from Chile for Argentina, Brazil, and Chile to meet with the U.S. and Mexico and work out a solution. They met for two months on the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. The United States then joined Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Bolivia, Guatemala, Uruguay, Colombia, and Costa Rica in announcing a new joint policy toward Mexico. (Can you hear the Muricafirsters screaming in outrage?) When World War I got going, Latin American governments favored neutrality. The President of Mexico proposed a collective trade embargo on the belligerents. Wilson wasn’t wise enough to listen.
Imagine if McKinley had listened when Spain had proposed neutral arbitration to resolve U.S. war lies over the U.S.S. Maine in Havana harbor!
But Wilson did listen to Latin American advocates for international law, whose work increasingly influenced U.S. scholars. Wilson said that “Pan-Americanism” was what he wanted to model the world on, but only after the war.
When the war had ended and the League of Nations was being planned and negotiated, Wilson had in mind a vision straight out of South America, and he wanted to apply it to the Earth. He had three barriers to face, however, and could not overcome them. One was that he was generally lying sick in bed.
The second was that he was a serious racist — as were others involved — or at least that he felt obliged to please racists back home. When Japan proposed that the covenant to create the League of Nations support “equality of nations and just treatment of their nationals,” the racists wouldn’t stand for it. As a result, some in Japan concluded that their best path forward was not the rule of law but the creation of an empire, or “an Asian Monroe Doctrine.” This was the same conference that viciously punished Germany, thereby laying the groundwork for the other “theater” of World War II as well, and the same conference at which Wilson refused to meet with Ho Chi Minh, just to pile on the future catastrophes being seeded.
The third problem was U.S. exceptionalism. The U.S. insisted on putting the Monroe Doctrine into the League of Nations, giving itself the power to violate the basic premise of the League at will. This was enough to poison the whole project, but not enough to win support of it in the U.S. Senate.
Latin American nations had pushed for a truly equitable League of Nations, and every last one of them joined it, such as it was. But when the League actively supported imperialism, Costa Rica, in 1925, was the first to leave it. Meanwhile something was infiltrating Latin America from the north: weapons. The arms profiteers were pushing sales hard and encouraging conflicts to boost them. European debts to Latin America for crops and resources supplied during World War I were paid off in left-over weapons, which strikes me as the opposite of paying off a debt. And the United States was still plying its beloved Monroe Doctrine, but it was now joined by imitators in Japan, Italy, England, and Germany, all declaring their own Monroe Doctrines.
President Franklin Roosevelt improved U.S. treatment of Latin America, and took Latin American ideas to lay plans for the United Nations. Grandin sadly and typically switches into war supporter mode when it comes to World War II. The fact that Roosevelt was lying when he claimed to have in his possession Nazi plans to take over South and Central America, is relegated by Grandin to a footnote that itself avoids quite telling the story. The U.S. exploitation of Latin America for World War II is recounted quite positively. And then comes the post-war planning. FDR told Stalin and Churchill that Latin America should be the model. FDR’s advisor Sumner Welles drafted plans for the United Nations based on his experiences in Latin America. At the meeting in San Franciso, Latin American delegations pushed for the UN to ban war and to create a court of arbitration, among many other positive steps.
But Latin American nations also demanded something I see as far less helpful than Grandin seems to. They wanted to hold onto a regional alliance as a commitment to defend each other. While others feared rightly that this could break the world up into sections, the final UN Charter nonetheless put into Article 51 that nations could act “collectively.”
This became an excuse for institutions seemingly at odds with the very purpose of the UN Charter, most notably NATO. Grandin quotes John Foster Dulles and Winston Churchill praising Latin America for this, and himself argues that without this “compromise” the United Nations might not have been created. But without Latin America demanding something at odds with the basic project, no compromise would have been needed.
After World War II, the U.S. rebuilt Germany with the Marshall Plan. George Marshall took part in a meeting in Bogotá in 1948 at which the nations of Latin America essentially asked “Where is our Marshall Plan?” Of course there was none, but can you imagine if there had been, if nations of the whole globe had been aided instead of armed? The post-war U.S. government wanted little to do with laws, rules, morality, or cooperation. Coups, weapons, bases, and invasions would be the order of the day. Pretty much from that day to this, with the addition of demonization.
And yet Latin America goes on showing the way. More than anywhere else in the world, Latin America is a nuclear free zone, supports the International Criminal Court, opposes the genocide in Gaza, and refuses to support either side of the war in Ukraine. Wearing North American blinders makes it hard even to recognize that as leadership. I hope that such recognition, and appreciation of past efforts too, sets in before it is too late.
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The emperor's new clothes
5.0 out of 5 stars An impressive attempt at recapping the history of the New World
Reviewed in the United States on 26 January 2026
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This entire 700+ page book can be culled down to this: The Spanish/conquistadores committed unspeakable atrocities in the New World, as did the British/colonists. Over time, Latin America tried to repent but the United States doubled down. The goal of the American Revolution was to create a North American empire--dependent on slavery and pushing the indigenous people out. Past and present, the U.S. views Latin America as its own and seeks to call all the shots. The recent grabbing of is consistent with the author's premise.
The reader may of may not agree with all of this, but this is the author's overriding message.
My biggest issue with the book is that it is too long with too much detail. After a while, I started skipping pages and my eyes started glazing over. But I still give the book 5 stars and would recommend giving it a try. The author has taken on a lot and I'm not sure anyone could have done a better job.
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Sam
5.0 out of 5 stars Stuff you don't know!
Reviewed in the United States on 23 March 2026
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Well, you'll need a *lot* of time to read this, but it will be time well spent. It's pretty dense, to the point that you start wanting a spreadsheet to keep track of everything... but I loved it.
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Norman A. Pattis
5.0 out of 5 stars spectacular
Reviewed in the United States on 22 February 2026
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Every few years, I’ll read a history of the United States simply to catch my bearings. I stumbled on this book by chance. It is an amazing read, placing, as it does, the development of the United States in the context of the Americas in general. Candidly, I had little idea of the richness of Latin American history before reading this. The book challenges nativists assumptions and invites consideration of a wider and richer world.
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Brian Lewis
4.0 out of 5 stars An Provocative History of the Western Hemisphere
Reviewed in the United States on 19 May 2025
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I am giving this four stars, because I feel it was unnecessarily long.
In the acknowledgements at the end of the book Grandin jokingly blames the length of the book, (737 pages in my Kindle edition) on an editor who persuaded him to start with the Spanish Conquest of Latin America rather than the Monroe Doctrine. But she was right. Starting then would have made South America look like a colony of the United States, and it is basically Grandin's theme that it was not.
It was still too long, but the South American portions of the book were the strongest, in my view. I certainly learned more in the first half of the book, where the focus is almost entirely on the Spanish Conquest. Aristotle Las Casas, the Spanish priest who protested the Spanish treatment of the local natives, emerges as one of the most compelling characters in the book. Grandin makes the point that there is no North American counterpart to Las Casas. Another such character is Simon Bolivar, who, unlike George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, freed his slaves in his lifetime.
It is in the second half of the book where the narrative is bogged down by one diplomatic conference after another. It does support Brandin's overall point that South America with its history of anti-colonialism and rejection of wars of conquest, pushed the world in the direction of human rights, the United Nations and international law. It is a provocative idea, but Grandin's advocacy of it could have been made in several pages instead of multiple chapters.
Nonetheless, recommended. You will almost certainly learn something, but you should go into it knowing it is a long slog.
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Felix Denegri
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesante
Reviewed in the United States on 7 March 2026
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Interesante comparación del desarrollo de las dos américas, la del norte centrada más en lo individual y occidental y, la del sur centrada más en lo social y enraizada en la historia precolombina.
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Steven J. Martin
5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely Wonderful
Reviewed in the United States on 11 December 2025
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I would recommend this book to all. The author examines Latin America and the US history, the good and the bad, as the complex subject that it is. Greg Grandin does a remarkable job of demonstrating the long extended mutual relationship between the countries that make up the America's and how the history of that relationship has helped create the challenges that we all face in the hemisphere we live in today.
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anonymous
5.0 out of 5 stars I learned a lot
Reviewed in the United States on 11 December 2025
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This is a great read. Well worth the length. Beautifully and clearly written. I learned so much, even though I have lived, worked and traveled extensively in Latin America, and I have read about it for years, trying to make sense of it. Thank you, Greg.
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Beacongroup
5.0 out of 5 stars Best place for savings on books
Reviewed in the United States on 13 January 2026
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Well written book. I purchase all my books on Amazon--savings are excellent compared to local books stores.
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Nicholas Masterson jr.
5.0 out of 5 stars Good book.
Reviewed in the United States on 10 October 2025
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Good book.worth the purchase. It shows how bad government and tyranny can form with the wrong hombres in power.very eye opening.a lot of things i didn't know. The barbarity of history from Columbus time to modern times is fairly depicted. I learned a lot.its really something everyone should get up on.if those totalitarian ones would read a history book so history doesn't repeat itself this would be one to read.
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TAG
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Work...But
Reviewed in the United States on 23 August 2025
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Great work done here, the best history of all of the "Americas"
Could have been better condensed to say 350 pages rather than the 650
That said, for us history buffs, hang in there with it.
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Richard Smit
5.0 out of 5 stars A refreshingly different perspective on the history of America.
Reviewed in the United States on 11 January 2026
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A refreshing point of view on America’s history, I highly recommend it.
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Jgm
5.0 out of 5 stars Mind blowing
Reviewed in the United States on 10 August 2025
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Only 1/2 way thru but already picked up another book of his. He scours resources and provides the true history. This book on American (the entire continent) history sheds damning (more than I knew) truths about European settlers, and particularly explains the deep and long history of racism in North America, the roots of capitalism and exploitation. The more you know, the dimmer and more sad some things become. Not great people, the Anglo saxons, Spanish and French.
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Richard Appel
5.0 out of 5 stars Fresh look at Western hemisphere history from Latin American perspective.
Reviewed in the United States on 12 September 2025
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Sweeping history of the Americas starting with the Spanish conquest in the South and the Pilgrims in the North. Eye opening About how long USA has manipulated Latin America for our own benefit. Only a short respite when FDR had his Good Neighbors policy. How Our present invasion happy policy grew out of the Monroe doctrine.
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LL
5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant book
Reviewed in the United States on 25 July 2025
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America, America is a brilliant book. It's the history we weren't taught as kids and the history that they don't want kids to be taught now. Read it and cry. It's as dark a history as slavery history is for the US. But buy it, read it and tell everyone you know to read it.
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anthony
5.0 out of 5 stars Look to the past to see the future
Reviewed in the United States on 13 June 2025
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Is America in decline for the foreseeable future ?
Has democracy in the Americas run it's course ?
Can income inequality be reversed ?
Can poverty and hunger decrease or be eradicated ?
Can human rights and basic human decency be restored ?
Can corruption and greed be tempered ?
Can the individual replace the corporation ?
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trilingual1946
5.0 out of 5 stars A Gripping New History Of The Americas
Reviewed in the United States on 30 April 2025
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Just started this weighty tome and the good news is that it’s a real page turner! A new history of the Americas from a unique viewpoint, examining how Anglo- and Latin-America developed and influenced each other and then the entire world. Grandin is an excellent writer. Nothing dry and stuffy about his writing. This is likely to become a classic work, assuming civilization survives for much longer.
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E. Grazda
5.0 out of 5 stars Who's America is it?
Reviewed in the United States on 5 July 2025
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this book should be taught in high schools and colleges. lincoln was for the seperation of the races, who knew!
a well researched book told from the perspective of "south " america.
a must read to understand how we got here.
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Rick Hughes
5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable Read
Reviewed in the United States on 5 June 2025
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I am really enjoying this book. I'm devoutly interested in the history of the Americas and this book provides many insights and facts that I hadn't heard before. It's well documented and sufficiently scholarly yet relatively easy to read.
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Michael Kurilla
5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Star review !
Reviewed in the United States on 15 May 2025
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As a historian, and even though Im only half way through reading the book , I rate it a "5" in terms of
its viewpint of the Americas. It received excellent reviews upon publication, which are well deserved !
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Maximiliano
5.0 out of 5 stars The Beauty and the Beast
Reviewed in the United States on 22 August 2025
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Excellent book on the difference and affinities of both worlds, the USA and Latina America.
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Richard Cadena
5.0 out of 5 stars Mandatory history for a profound understanding of the American continent/hemisphere.
Reviewed in the United States on 29 May 2025
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This is mandatory reading for any person born and raised anywhere in the American Hemisphere. This is also the history that is not taught in schools. It is incredibly eye-opening.
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Anita
5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive and new information with focus on the Americas over 500 years.
Reviewed in the United States on 11 September 2025
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Impressive history.
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N R
5.0 out of 5 stars America, América. A valued review of a subject very few people is interested nowadays
Reviewed in the United States on 8 August 2025
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An excellent, easy to read piece of work.
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Raymond Daniels
5.0 out of 5 stars Things you were never taught
Reviewed in the United States on 18 July 2025
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Great wowk book that tells a true history of America
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Paul Petrelli
1.0 out of 5 stars Superficial
Reviewed in the United States on 4 February 2026
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The author fails to look into root causes, spending all his time on legalistic analysis that had effect on what actually transpired.
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william boelhower
1.0 out of 5 stars The print is often too light to read.
Reviewed in the United States on 30 April 2025
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From page 215 to 261 the print is barely readable! I was sent a reject.
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<아메리카, 아메리카>는 퓰리처상 수상 역사학자인 그레그 그랜딘이 신대륙의 500년 역사를 거대한 단일 프레임 안에서 재해석한 기념비적 저작이다. 흔히 미국의 정체성은 유럽이라는 거울을 통해 형성되었다고 이야기되지만, 그랜딘은 북미의 독특한 자기 인식과 패권주의가 실제로는 남쪽, 즉 라틴 아메리카와의 끊임없는 갈등과 교류 속에서 단련되었다고 주장한다. 이 책은 스페인의 정복 시기부터 20세기 냉전기의 쿠데타와 혁명, 그리고 현대의 일방주의로의 회귀에 이르기까지 반천년의 연대기를 추적하며 북미와 남미가 어떻게 서로를 변화시키고 오늘날의 세계 질서를 함께 만들었는지를 입증한다.
역사학자 그레그 그랜딘의 <아메리카, 아메리카: 신대륙의 새로운 역사>에 대한 요약과 평론이다.
요약: 남과 북의 얽힌 역사와 서구 근대성의 재형성
책은 크게 두 개의 지층으로 구성되어 있다. 외곽을 둘러싼 거시적 지층은 16세기 스페인 정복자들과 청교도들의 도래, 존 로크의 사상, 그리고 바르톨로메 드 라스 카사스 신부의 유산으로 거슬러 올라간다. 그랜딘은 스페인 식민 체제가 인디언 학살과 노예제라는 참극 속에서도 <모든 인류는 하나>라는 가톨릭 보편주의적 고뇌를 내포하고 있었음에 주목한다. 이러한 보편적 인주의의 흐름은 이후 시몬 볼리바르의 노예제 폐지 운동, 1917년 멕시코 헌법의 사회적 권리 명시, 그리고 20세기 해방신학으로 이어진다. 반면 북미의 미국은 건국 초기부터 영토 확장론을 내재하고 있었으며, 면화 자본주의와 백인 우월주의, 그리고 프런티어의 기회가 결합하면서 남쪽을 향한 구조적 팽창을 시작했다.
내부의 핵심 지층은 미국의 제국주의적 일방주의와 이에 맞선 라틴 아메리카의 국제법적 저항을 다룬다. 그랜딘은 1889년 제1회 범아메리카 회의, 1907년 헤이그 평화회의, 1919년 파리 강화회의 등 결정적인 외교적 순간들을 세밀하게 복원한다. 여기서 미국의 외교관들이 남쪽의 이웃들을 종속적인 클라이언트로 만들려 한 반면, 라틴 아메리카의 지식인과 정치가들은 주권 재민, 불간섭주의, 국제 중재라는 보편적 원칙을 내세워 미국의 패권에 맞섰다.
특히 흥미로운 지점은 이 갈등이 단순한 예속과 지배의 관계에 머물지 않았다는 사실이다. 미국의 자유주의 국제주의자들은 라틴 아메리카가 제시한 법적 원칙들을 흡수하여 새로운 세계 질서의 뼈대를 구축했다. 루스벨트 행정부의 <선린 정책>은 미국에 세계 파시즘과 싸울 수 있는 도덕적 권위를 부여했고, 라틴 아메리카 국가들의 끈질긴 규칙 개정 요구는 결과적으로 유엔(UN) 창설과 현대 국제법 제정으로 직결되었다. 즉, 오늘날 전 세계를 규율하는 보편적 인권과 국제 제도의 이면에는 북미의 일방주의적 개입과 이에 저항하며 규칙을 새로 쓴 남미의 치열한 상호작용이 존재한다. 책은 냉전기 미국의 잔혹한 군사 개정 시기를 지나, 과거의 교훈을 망각하고 일방주의와 고립주의로 회귀하는 현대 미국의 외교적·도덕적 실패를 경고하며 마무리된다.
평론: 제국의 신화를 깨는 연대와 주변부의 역동성
그레그 그랜딘은 <아메리카, 아메리카>를 통해 미국 중심주의 역사학의 오만한 시선을 정면으로 타파한다. 이 책의 가장 큰 학문적 성취는 <아메리카>라는 단어를 미국(USA)이라는 단일 국가의 전유물에서 해방시켜, 이 대륙이 본래 지니고 있던 복수성과 상호 연결성을 회복했다는 점이다. 그랜딘은 미국이 동쪽(유럽)을 바라보며 민주주의와 자유의 가치를 독자적으로 완성했다는 예외주의적 신화를 단호히 거부한다. 대신 미국의 제국주의적 정체성과 경제적 번영은 남쪽을 침략하고, 노예제를 확장하며, 라틴 아메리카의 자원을 수탈하는 과정에서 비로소 완성되었다는 어두운 진실을 폭로한다.
평론가로서 주목해야 할 이 책의 탁월함은 라틴 아메리카를 문명의 수동적인 희생자나 피해자로만 그리지 않았다는 데 있다. 그랜딘의 붓끝에서 남미는 보편적 인주의와 국제법적 질서를 선도한 도덕적 주체로 격상된다. 서구 근대성의 핵심 가치인 인간 존엄성과 주권 평등의 원칙은 북미의 건국 아버지들이 독점한 것이 아니라, 라틴 아메리카의 고통스러운 저항과 사유 속에서 정교하게 다듬어졌다. 미국의 군사적 개입에 맞서 규칙을 재정의함으로써 유엔의 기틀을 마련했다는 그랜딘의 논증은 지정학적 주변부로 취급받던 라틴 아메리카를 세계사 형성의 중심 무대로 끌어올리는 지적 쾌감을 선사한다.
스타일 면에서도 그랜딘은 방대한 사료를 자유자재로 통제하며 역사적 서사에 압도적인 생동감을 부여한다. 프란시스코 드 미란다와 알렉산더 해밀턴의 공모, 라스 카사스의 유령이 시몬 볼리바르와 해방신학으로 이어지는 궤적 등은 단순한 일화의 나열을 넘어 거대한 구조적 필연성을 설득력 있게 전달한다. 역사적 비극을 냉철하게 분석하면서도 고통받는 민중의 인내와 도덕적 투쟁에 보내는 저자의 따뜻한 시선과 억눌린 분노는 텍스트에 깊은 울림을 더한다.
결론적으로 <아메리카, 아메리카>는 단순한 외교사나 지역학 연구를 뛰어넘는, 신대륙에 대한 완벽하고 새로운 사학적 재해석이다. 과거의 침략과 연대의 역사를 동시적 프레임으로 바라보는 이 책은, 다극화된 현대 세계에서 일방주의적 도그마에 빠진 강대국들이 나아가야 할 도덕적 이정표를 제시한다. 역사학이 어떻게 현재의 오만을 경고하고 잊힌 연대의 가능성을 복원할 수 있는지 보여주는 위대한 걸작이다.
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