Synopses & Reviews
In Disciplinary Conquest Ricardo D. Salvatore rewrites the origin story of Latin American Studies by tracing the discipline's roots back to the first half of the twentieth century. Salvatore focuses on the work of five representative U.S. scholars of South America—historian Clarence Haring, geographer Isaiah Bowman, political scientist Leo Rowe, sociologist Edward Ross, and archaeologist Hiram Bingham—to show how Latin American Studies was allied with U.S. business and foreign policy interests. Diplomats, policy makers, business investors, and the American public used the knowledge these and other scholars gathered to build an informal empire that fostered the growth of U.S. economic, technological, and cultural hegemony throughout the hemisphere. Tying the drive to know South America to the specialization and rise of Latin American Studies, Salvatore shows how the disciplinary conquest of South America affirmed a new mode of American imperial engagement.
Review
"In this stunning book Ricardo D. Salvatore provides a major methodological, theoretical, and interpretive contribution to U.S. history, Latin American history, U.S.-Latin American relations, and intellectual history by analyzing the workings and complexities of cultural authority, interpersonal networks, and situated knowledges. A significant book by a major scholar."
Review
"Disciplinary Conquest is certain to generate stimulating debates about the bonds between knowledge and empire and about U.S.-Latin American relations. Ricardo D. Salvatore opens important new paths for research about the nature of American empire in the twentieth century; the origins of Latin American Studies; the ties between U.S. academics, government, and foreign policy; the roots of Pan-Americanism; F.D.R.'s Good Neighbor Policy; and U.S. conceptualizations of modernization, development, and dependency in relation to Latin America. Intricate, wide-ranging, and provocative, this book should be read by all who study Latin America and anyone interested in knowledge, power, and empire."
Synopsis
Ricardo D. Salvatore rewrites the history of Latin American studies by tracing its roots back to the first half of the twentieth century, showing how its ties to U.S. business and foreign policy interests helped build an informal empire that supported U.S. economic, technological, and cultural hegemony throughout the hemisphere.
About the Author
Ricardo D. Salvatore is Plenary Professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella in Buenos Aires. He is the author of Wandering Paysanos: State Order and Subaltern Experience in Buenos Aires Province during the Rosas Era and the coeditor of Crime and Punishment in Latin America: Law and Society Since Late Colonial Times, both also published by Duke University Press.