The countries of Latin America have suffered through numerous foreign interventions and domestic wars in the nearly two centuries that have followed its independence. These conflicts have also given rise to mass mobilizations of middle-class professionals, women, peasants, urban workers, and Indians, who sought to carve out a more active public role in the new states that emerged from these struggles. In some cases, elites and their military allies violently repressed the newly emerging forces. Recent research has begun to place greater emphasis on the lives of common people and the interventions they had on the larger events of the day. Eight chapters written by different scholars show the the importance of the actions of civilians in wars in Latin America.

Chapters describing civilians' roles and lives through wars in Latin America are supplemented by recommended print and online resources for further study, a glossary defining important terms and concepts, and a timeline putting events into a chronological context.

Santoni, Pedro

Pedro Santoni is Professor of History and Department Chair at California State University, San Bernardino. His research interests lie in the political, military, and cultural history of nineteenth-century Mexico, and his publications include Mexican at Arms: Puro Federalists and the Politics of War, 1845-1848, and Where Did the Other Heroes Go? Exalting the Polko National Guard Battalions in Nineteenth-Century Mexico. He has also served as president of the Southwestern Historical Association, and as a consultant for historical research projects sponsored by the Ford Foundation and the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.