Inventing the indigenous

Political turmoil in Bolivia hints at a paradigm shift. Review: Bolivia and the Making of the Global Indigenous Movement, Juanita Roca-Sánchez

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Radical remembrance

A Chilean artist shaped by the nightmare of Pinochet subverts colonial time. Review: Alfredo Jaar: Decolonial Time and the Aesthetics of the Unfinished, Florencia San Martín

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So much for the dream

An underclass of young Mexican American men is trapped by systemic exclusion. Review: Homeboys Forever: The Lifetime Consequences of Gang Membership, Avelardo Valdez

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The short-lived utopia

Guyana once provided revolutionary hope for African Americans. Review: A Proxy Africa: Guyana, African Americans, and the Radical 1970s, Russell Rickford

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Liberal limits

El Salvador reveals the failure of a dominant idea. Review: Indignant Liberalism: Political Protest and Generational Change in El Salvador, Ellen Moodie

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Doing Washington’s dirty work

Mexico shot itself in the foot by kowtowing to the US migrant backlash. Review: Organised Crime and Migration, Victorie Knox

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The open wound of Tlaloc

A Mexican town’s bid to restore a sacred stone reflects a new politics of patrimony. Review: The Absent Stone: Mexican Patrimony and the Aftershocks of State Theft, Sandra Rozental

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Colonisation of the decolonial

Art is a way of confronting institutional obstacles to decolonisation. Review: Unmaking to Make: Art as decolonising practice in Latin America’s future, past and present

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Painting pain

Georgina Jiménez assesses how London’s Tate Modern is exploring ‘Fridamania’

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Roots of the right

Authoritarian populism in Brazil is both new—and old. Review: The Faces of Authoritarianism and Strategies of Dissent in Contemporary Brazil

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A bad smell in Brazil

The Bolsonaro bandwagon continues to reek of malodorous far-right fictions. Review: The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy, AJA Woods

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Aztec bohemia

A London bookseller’s visionary homage to the Beat Generation reveals how Mexico nurtured a cultural revolution

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Mexico’s foreign fetish

Studying abroad has been an elite status symbol that has damaged sovereignty. Review: The Future in Their Hands: Making Mexico’s Foreign-Educated Elite, Rachel Grace Newman

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Peace betrayed

The insecurity of campesinos is fuelling violence in Colombia. Review: Governing the Excluded: Rural Livelihoods Beyond Coca in Colombia’s Peace Laboratory, Alex Diamond

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Forgotten island

Puerto Rico’s colonial status made its debt crisis inevitable. Review: Promise Land: The Inside Story of the Puerto Rico Debt Crisis, David Skeel

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Domestic dissidence

Reform of property rights was a step in the emancipation of Latin American women. Books in brief: First-Wave Feminism and Women’s Civil and Political Rights in South America

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Invisible encounter

A study of racial politics mounts a challenge to area studies. Books in brief: Transpacific Nonencounters: Racial Disconnects Across Twentieth-Century Japan and Mexico

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Revolutionary tales unearthed

Mexican and Cuban stories translated by Langston Hughes make a radical debut. Books in brief: Troubled Lands: Stories of Mexico and Cuba

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When Pop goes ‘pop!’

Antonio Dias was the most famous Brazilian pop artist that never was. Books in brief: Borderless Painting as Borderless Art: Antonio Dias between Brazil and Europe

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Back to México bronco

An old US predilection for finger-pointing underpins a new study of its neighbour. Review: The Making of Mexico: Revolution, Reform, and Transformation, Pamela K Starr

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Birth of the Latino

Puerto Ricans offer lessons for Latin Americans in the UK seeking recognition. Review: White, Black, Brown: Becoming Puerto Rican in Chicago, Michael Staudenmaier

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Mayan lessons for the world

A groundbreaking history of the Maya unifies a hitherto fragmented narrative. Review: The Four Heavens: A New History of the Ancient Maya, David Stuart

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Podcast 41: Gangster imperialism

We need to understand the forms taken by anti-imperialism as Trump wreaks havoc on the global order, Marxist historian John Rees explained at a Counterfire event in London

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The female currency of Conquest

A new novel traces the lives of the Aztec emperor’s forgotten daughters. Books in brief: The Other Moctezuma Girls, Sofia Robleda

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Aide-mémoire

Latin America’s need to remember a darker past is influencing literature. Books in brief: Exemplary Humans, Juliana Leite

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Apocalypse now

A Peruvian graphic novel grapples with a collapsing world. Books in brief: Before We Sail, Carlos Yacolca et al.

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Love and other revolutionary matters

A sociocultural study of Cuba’s transnational relationships offers rare insights. Review: The Cuban Revolution and the New Left, Michelle Chase and Isabella Cosse (eds)

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Armageddon foreseen

Was a masterpiece by Mario Vargas Llosa about the Brazilian ‘War of Canudos’ really referring to Israel’s rampage through the Middle East?

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Reproductive resistance

Judiciaries have shaped how abortion has risen up the agenda. Books in brief: The Judicial Politics of Abortion in Latin America: Argentina, Colombia, Costa Rica, and Mexico

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Mutual kingdoms

Nature’s cultural impact is best seen by breaking disciplinary boundaries. Books in brief: Plants and Animals in Latin American Cultural Production

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