The Other West: Latin America from Invasion to Globalization (review)

Marcello Carmagnani, a professor at the University of Turin and the Colegio de México, has produced a provocative interpretation of Latin American history since the sixteenth century; it was originally published in Italy in 2003. Author and editor of several works on the Latin American past, Carmagnani aims to relocate the region's historical framework within "the recurring patterns of Latin America's participation in world history" (p. 1). While he affirms greater Westernization as the fundamental outcome of the experience of the last 500 years, he seeks to walk a fine line between the "shared history" of Latin American nations and any notion of a "common destiny" (p. 3).

For Carmagnani, Westernization has not been the passive Latin American "assimilation of European and North American standards" (p. 283). Instead, it is the outcome of the reciprocal processes by which "Latin Americans and the rest of the world" over time "invented a trajectory that made the subcontinent converge with Iberia, Europe, and the West" (p. 283). Explicitly rejecting dependency theory or any other interpretation that would place Latin America on the margins of the central historical trends of the powerful industrial nations, Carmagnani writes to "'redeem' those instances when the 'subaltern' Latin American countries acted decisively to change their own history" (p. 4).

As one would expect, Carmagnani's interpretive thrust puts him at odds with many of the underlying historical perspectives of the last generation, such as those embodied in Tulio Halperín Donghi's influential and frequently republished The Contemporary History of Latin America (1967). Carmagnani's historical interpretation undergirds a positive view: a confident, twenty-first century Latin America engaged in globalization, subject to more cosmopolitan influences and market forces, and, in many cases, less deferential to U.S. foreign policy. Nonetheless, one need not necessarily embrace the direction of Carmagnani's arguments in order to benefit from the book. Each of its five chapters contains an impressive wealth of information and engaging views, many of them valuable for even the most knowledgeable reader, particularly those concerning Latin American economic life.

Yet Carmagnani's overriding conclusions can prove less satisfying. His recounting of the colonial period emphasizes fusion over imposition. Collaboration plays a greater role than conflict in structuring societies in which "by 1650 all the ethnic and racial groups, from the lowest to the highest on the social scale, had absorbed, albeit to different degrees, Iberian values" (p. 51). Despite the internal secessionist forces that emerged strongly in the generation after independence, "in its separation from the monarchic order, Latin America resembled other parts of the Western world seeking a constitutional order that would allow political actors to choose a liberal, representative form of government with balanced constitutional powers" (p. 135). Dictatorships, militarism, and civil conflict notwithstanding, Carmagnani finds a Latin American political order at the turn of the twentieth century, one "founded on compromise and the harmonization of interests" (p. 191). His treatment of twentieth-century Latin American nationalism relies too much on the dismissive term "populist," and his coverage of the Cold War era proves particularly disappointing, both in its coverage of U.S. Latin American policy and in its scant treatment of national security, state regimes, and matters of human rights.

Too often Carmagnani's overall arguments do not stem clearly from the detailed information he presents. Within chapters, the flow of the narrative does not always establish a clear direction. On occasion he takes refinements in historical interpretations or gradual shifts in historical patterns as if they were sufficient basis for absolute revisionist statements. While the book does contain a useful bibliography, Carmagnani seldom engages openly with other scholars or with prevailing historiographical concerns. At times, he simply resorts to casting aside unnamed academic opponents with such phrases as "despite the beliefs of earlier scholars" (p. 243) or "contrary to what others have argued" (p. 244).

These deficiencies aside, this ambitious restatement of Latin...