Offering a balance of social, political, environmental and cultural history, this exciting new textbook looks at the whole of Latin America in a thematic rather than country-by-country approach, while emphasizing the story of the diverse people of Latin America, their everyday lives, and the issues and forces that affect them. Written by two of the leading scholars in the field, Cheryl Martin and Mark Wasserman, Latin America and Its People presents a fresh interpretative survey of Latin American history from pre-Columbian times to the beginning of the Twenty-First Century, where the lives of Latin Americans are given center stage. It examines the many institutions that Latin Americans have built and rebuilt families governments from the village level to the nation-state, churches, political parties, labor unions, schools, and armies, and it does so through the lives of the people who forged these institutions and tried to alter them to meet the changing circumstances.