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America, América

A New History of the New World

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America, América

By: Greg Grandin
Narrated by: Holter Graham
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“Dazzling. Sweeping. Mind-altering. World-changing. . . . Destined to become our new reference for understanding the making of the modern world.” —Naomi Klein, New York Times bestselling author of Doppelganger

“Scintillating . . . It’s a monumental new view of the New World.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian, the first comprehensive history of the Western Hemisphere, a sweeping five-century narrative of North and South America that redefines our understanding of both

The story of how the United States’ identity was formed is almost invariably told by looking east to Europe. But as Greg Grandin vividly demonstrates, the nation’s unique sense of itself was in fact forged facing south toward Latin America. In turn, Latin America developed its own identity in struggle with the looming colossus to the north. In this stunningly original reinterpretation of the New World, Grandin reveals how North and South emerged from a constant, turbulent engagement with each other.

America, América traverses half a millennium, from the Spanish Conquest—the greatest mortality event in human history—through the eighteenth-century wars for independence, the Monroe Doctrine, the coups and revolutions of the twentieth century, and beyond. Grandin shows, among other things, how in response to U.S. interventions, Latin Americans remade the rules, leading directly to the founding of the United Nations; and how the Good Neighbor Policy allowed FDR to assume the moral authority to lead the fight against world fascism.

Grandin’s book sheds 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; the Colombian Jorge Gaitán, whose unsolved murder inaugurated the rise of Cold War political terror, death squads, and disappearances; and the radical journalist Ernest Gruening, who, in championing non-interventionism in Latin America, helped broker the most spectacularly successful policy reversal in United States history. This is a monumental work of scholarship that will fundamentally change the way we think of Spanish and English colonialism, slavery and racism, and the rise of universal humanism. At once comprehensive and accessible, America, América shows that centuries of bloodshed and diplomacy not only helped shape the political identities of the United States and Latin America but also the laws, institutions, and ideals that govern the modern world. In so doing, Grandin argues that Latin America’s deeply held culture of social democracy can be an effective counterweight to today’s spreading rightwing authoritarianism.

A culmination of a decades-long engagement with hemispheric history, drawing on a vast array of sources, and told with authority and flair, this is a genuinely new history of the New World. Americas Latin America United States War Socialism Capitalism Imperialism Africa Middle Ages French Revolution Soviet Union Liberalism American History Franklin D. Roosevelt Social justice Taxation Self-Determination Interwar Period
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Enlightening Content • Comprehensive History • Good Reading • Eye-opening Perspective • Thorough Research

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This book will both break your heart and stir up righteous anger as it chronicles one failure after another to turn the advance of European conquest of the Western Hemisphere from exploitation and enslavement to mutually beneficial human interaction. Greg Grandin exposes a through line running from the Spanish conquest to the 21st Century of domination for greed and profit that justified the dispossession and suppression of those considered to be lesser peoples. Aspects in this book of historical figures not usually seen in popular accounts are sure to adjust readers' assessments of major actors such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Quincy Adams, and Harry Truman—and these aspects intensify in the aftermath of World War II.

Grandin chronicles the evolution of an initial vision of a common America encompassing both continents into one that developed into the new United States seeing itself as the dominant hemispheric hegemon as early as the end of the Revolutionary War against Great Britain. The Monroe Doctrine, which had some beneficial features if applied judiciously, eventually became a bludgeon for imposed will until the US no longer found it useful in its original form. The seeming roller coaster success and setback of significant figures such as Simón Bolívar illustrates the many disappointments of things not gone right. One point of structure that Grandin mentions frequently is the principle of "uti possidetis juris," which was based in Roman law and stipulated that the new South American states would preserve the territorial boundaries they held as administrative units under their former colonial powers—it served to provide legal and territorial continuity to avoid useless conflicts, and has served well in avoiding some unnecessary wars.

In the narrative that Grandin presents, things turned notably for the worse during the Cold War and neoliberal Globalization. The South American countries were not helped in developing their domestic industries, primarily due to US companies preference to keep them instead as extractive sources of raw materials. The wave of right wing coups and dictators propped up by US operatives has impeded any meaningful social and economic progress—Augusto Pinochet's rule of terror in Chile is a well known example, and it served as a model that fellow travelers of the neoliberal Chicago Boys used to guide Vladimir Putin to emulate in Russia. Many of these coups were assisted by Frank Wisner's 1940s "Mighty Wurlitzer" of propaganda, which is still playing its hits on more technologically advanced platforms today.

We need something that can outperform Wisner's "Wurlitzer," and negate the vast amount of right wing disinformation that has been flooding the zone for far too long—it's past time to start calling up the songs of humanity. One may readily perceive from Grandin's skillful description how Bartolomé de las Casas had in the early 16th Century something better than 19th Century Marxism in his insistence that all people share a common humanity that cuts across cultural and racial divides. This is a view rooted in Christian doctrine, natural law, and empirical observation. For ourselves, we need to see that Bartolomé de las Casas outshines Milton Friedman in our own time—the case is easy to make.

Bartolomé de las Casas over Milton Friedman

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Listening to this for the last couple of months, has given me a fuller perspective of current events. This is the book we should’ve been taught from in school. It was so good I had to buy a print copy.

Perfect timing

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Graeber writes the history of the Americas that the U.S. selectively amnesia-thetize from our versions of the world. This should be required reading for anyone traveling in LATAM

Most important history book of 2025

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I have often considered myself a daughter of the Americas, defined myself that way. I am “pura gringa”, from one of the oldest colonial families in the United States. And yet I was drawn to Latin America, focusing my college degree on essentially US imperialism and LA economic development. As I say in my intro to Collaborative Hardball: Using the Power of a New Negotiation to Change the World, this was because I grew up surrounded by patriarchy and Wall Street and I think I knew intuitively what LA had suffered at the expense of Anglo male supremacy. Anyway, I loved this book and may even re-read as there is so much in it. We in the U.S. are “hitting our bottom” as they say in AA. We have been drunk on dominance and a “rape” culture that needs to turn a corner if the world will survive. Thank you Gregg Grandin. My only criticism is that I often felt like women’s voices were sort of a tack-on and needed to be more consistently in the foreground throughout. If you are interested in my book check out www.susancoleman.global/book

Why I relate to Latin America as a Colonial Woman from the United States

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This book reveals so much about the relationship between the “Americas” that I did not know (or only understood the thin surface of a complex and inter-tangled experience)—A deep dive into the Western Hemisphere’s history that is well worth your time.

Deeply researched and smoothly executed

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