Born in Blood and Fire: A History of Latin America

Professor John Charles Chasteen talked about his book Born in Blood and Fire: A Concise History of Latin America, published by W.W. Norton and Co. Mr. Chasteen talked about the challenge of writing this book and the challenge of telling the story of nineteen Latin American countries as a single unit. The author’s lecture focused on the colonization of Latin America by European countries and the creation of social inequities in Latin American societies. He further detailed how indigenous societies were destroyed by conquerors and by colonization, the process of social race mixing and miscegenation, and the strain that race mixing put on the caste system in these societies. He also answered questions from members of the audience. close