Previous edition: A history of Latin America : c. 1450 to the present. 2004.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Lands and climates -- American peoples -- Iberia and Africa -- Columbus and others -- Experiment in the Caribbean -- Military conquest -- Administration : the power of paper -- Church : friars, bishops, and the state -- Society : old orders changed -- Economy : ships and silver -- The seventeenth century : a slacker grip -- Eighteenth-century Spanish America : reformed or doomed? -- Colonial Brazil : slaves, sugar, and gold -- Independence -- Epilogue