Americans All: The Story of Our Latin American Neighbors

Keen, Benjamin, Ed., Americans All: The Story of Our Latin American Neighbors, New York: Dell Publishing Co., 1966.

Benjamin Keen (1913–2002) was an American historian specialising in the history of colonial Latin America. After receiving his PhD from Yale in the 1950s during the McCarthy-era Red Scare he was blacklisted for his progressive political attitudes and had to work as an editor in an East Coast publishing house until he was hired as a professor by the Northern Illinois University in 1965. He retired in 1981. In 1985 he received the Distinguished Service Award of the Conference of Latin American History.

Table of Contents:

Foreword

PART I – The Splendor of Ancient America:
The Magical Exploits of Two Maya Heroes
The Halls of Montezuma
The Songs of Quetzalcoatl
Pachacuti: Inca Conqueror and Lawgiver
The Inca Empire: Totalitarian Tyranny or Welfare State?

PART II – The Spaniards Conquer America:
Columbus Loosens the Bonds of Ocean
Clash at Tlaxcala
The Meeting of Cortes and Montezuma
The Fall of Tenochtitlan
Rendezvous in Cajamarca
The Man Who Would Be King
Portrait of the Conqueror

PART III – Life in the Spanish Colonies:
Las Casas: God’s Angry Man
On the Sea – Road to the Indies
Pirates of the Spanish Main
The Colonial City: Mexico
A Model Judge: Alonso de Zorita
In the Hands of the Inquisition
Sor Juana: The Tenth Muse
A Colonial Rebel

PART IV – Latin America Wins Its Independence:
Man of Destiny
The Knights of the Andes
Ayacucho
Hidalgo: Torchbearer of the Mexican Revolution

PART V – Society and Politics in the Nineteenth Century:
Facundo: Barbarian Caudillo
Roads to the Future
Fiesta at San Agustin
The Forgotten Man

PART VI – Latin America and the Twentieth Century:
The Continuing Mexican Revolution
The Uprooted
The Movement for Social Reform
The Negro in Brazil
Brazil’s Northeast: A Crisis Area
Two Views of the Cuban Revolution
The Corn and the Wheat
Farewell to the Gaucho

PART VII – The United States and Latin America:
The Monroe Doctrine
The Good Neighbor Policy
The Alliance for Progress
The Cuban Missile Crisis
The United States, Cuba, and Latin America