Latin America Regions and People

Popular among students for its engaging, accessible style, this text provides an authoritative overview of Latin America's human geography as well as its regional complexity. Extensively revised to reflect the region's ongoing evolution in the first decades of the 21st century, the second edition's alternating thematic and regional chapters trace Latin America's historical development while revealing the diversity of its people and places. Coverage encompasses cultural history, environment and physical geography, urban development, agriculture and land use, social and economic processes, and the contemporary patterns of the Latin American diaspora. Pedagogical features include vivid topical vignettes, end-of-chapter recommended readings and other resources, and 217 photographs, maps, and figures.

New to This Edition
*Discussions of climate change and its impacts, the demise of the Monroe doctrine, neoliberal agriculture, the growing influence of Chinese investment, and other new topics.
*13 new vignettes highlighting current issues such as the thaw in United States-Cuba relations, drug violence in Mexico, aerial gondolas in the Andes, and the first Latin pope.
*Annotated website and film recommendations for most chapters.
*The latest development trends, population and economic data, and current events of local and global significance.
*26 new photographs, maps, and figures.

Robert B. Kent, PhD, is Department Chair and the James H. Ring Professor of Urban Studies and Planning at the California State University, Northridge. He is also Professor Emeritus of Geography and Planning at the University of Akron. His research and publications have focused broadly on the human geography of Latin America, especially the Andes and Central America, and on the evolving geography of Latin Americans in the United States. He has traveled, lived, and worked throughout Latin America, including 3 years spent as an urban and regional planner in Peru for the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). He served as a consultant for USAID in Bolivia on numerous occasions. Dr. Kent was a Fulbright Scholar at the Universidad Nacional de San Juan in San Juan, Argentina, and at the Universidad Pedagógica Nacional in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and also spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Universitat Jaume I in Castellón de la Plana, Spain. He is a past chair of the Conference of Latin Americanist Geographers, and currently a member of its board of directors. He also is a past councillor and treasurer of the Association of American Geographers. He has published many scholarly articles and book chapters and several books on regional development, urban planning, cartography, GIS, and cultural geography.

1. Introduction
2. Latin America as a Culture Region
3. The Environment
4. The Hispanic Caribbean
5. Peopling Latin America to 1820
6. The Mesa Central of Mexico
7. Early Cities and Urban Development
8. The Andes
9. Migration, Population Change, and Race
10. The Central Valley of Chile
11. The Central American Highlands
12. Land and People since the Conquest
13. Brazil’s Atlantic Coastal Plain
14. Contemporary Cities and Urban Patterns
15. The Southern Brazilian Highlands
16. Latin American Development in Perspective
17. The Pampa
18. Latin America in the World Economy
19. The Amazon Basin
20. The Latin American Diaspora
21. Conclusion