America, Amrica: A New History of the New World

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From a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes 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. 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 Bartolome de las Casas, Sim n Bolivar 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, America 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 slavery and racism, the rise of universal humanism, and the role of social democracy in staving off extremism. At once comprehensive and accessible, America, America 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.

Reviews

A fascinating, insightful book that will transform your understanding of Latin America's crucial role in the rise of the United States and the making of the modern world. -- Jonathan Kennedy, author of Pathogenesis

Praise for Greg Grandin

Grandin has always been a brilliant historian, now he uses those detective skills in a book that is absolutely crucial to understanding our present.
Naomi Klein on Empires Workshop

A sweeping and beautifully written book that probes the American myth of boundless expansion and provides a compelling context for thinking about the current political moment.
Pulitzer Prize committee on The End of the Myth

Greg Grandins deft penetration into the marrow of the slave industry is compelling, brilliant, and necessary
Toni Morrison on The Empire of Necessity

Grandin writes with literary flair and a sharp eye for the absurdities of politics.
Washington Post on Kissingers Shadow

Author Bio

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; and Fordlandia, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award; and a number of other widely acclaimed books. He is C. Van Woodward Professor of History at Yale University.