James D. Henderson – författare

This history of Colombia's illegal drug trade--and of the extreme violence it created--describes how in the late 1960s narcotics traffickers from the United States convinced Colombians who had no previous involvement in the drug trade to grow marijuana for export to America. By the early '70s, foreign (mostly American) traffickers began requesting cocaine.This book focuses on the decades of crime and violence the illegal drug trade brought to Colombia and how this social upset was ended in the early 2000s. Six chapters detail the Medellin and Cali cartels' war against the Colombian government, the revolutionary guerrillas' war against the government, the war that paramilitary groups conducted against the guerrillas, and the way in which the government finally put a stop to the cartel-financed bloodshed.In conclusion, the author assesses Colombia's progress and prospects since the end of the violence claimed the lives of some 300,000 between 1975 and 2008.

In the seventeenth century, Catalina de Erauso, at age sixteen a renegade Basque nun, escaped from her convent and traveled to the New World, eventually reaching Peru. She became an outlaw and a crossdresser with a price on her head. Yet she ended her days absolved by both the King of Spain and the Pope, the latter of whom granted her permission to dress as a man for the remainder of her life. The Nun Ensign passed her final years guarding silver shipments on the Mexico City-Veracruz highway. The life of the Nun Ensign highlights not just her extraordinary life but also the opportunities seized by women in colonial Latin America. This book profiles the Nun Ensign and nine other women of colonial Latin America, offering an alternate method for understanding the region and its history. The ten figures span different ethnic, geographic, occupational, and class backgrounds. Through their stories, the reader comes away with an enriched understanding of colonial Latin American history.

In the seventeenth century, Catalina de Erauso, at age sixteen a renegade Basque nun, escaped from her convent and traveled to the New World, eventually reaching Peru. She became an outlaw and a crossdresser with a price on her head. Yet she ended her days absolved by both the King of Spain and the Pope, the latter of whom granted her permission to dress as a man for the remainder of her life. The Nun Ensign passed her final years guarding silver shipments on the Mexico City-Veracruz highway. The life of the Nun Ensign highlights not just her extraordinary life but also the opportunities seized by women in colonial Latin America. This book profiles the Nun Ensign and nine other women of colonial Latin America, offering an alternate method for understanding the region and its history. The ten figures span different ethnic, geographic, occupational, and class backgrounds. Through their stories, the reader comes away with an enriched understanding of colonial Latin American history.

In 1930s rural Argentina, a determined fifteen-year-old left an isolated, poverty-stricken life to find her fortune in the “Paris of South America”—Buenos Aires. There, with few connections, little education, but plenty of persistence, Maria Eva Duarte gained a toehold in the city’s artistic scene. Eva—Evita—then navigated the radio revolution to fortune, providing for her mother and siblings along the way. She caught the eye of rising political star Colonel Juan Perón, and with him, she rode the pro-labor wave all the way to the presidential palace. The story of Eva Duarte Perón highlights not just her own extraordinary life, but the opportunities seized by women of all classes and backgrounds in post-independence modernizing Latin America.This work offers an alternate method for understanding modern Latin America and its history. The ten figures treated are ethnically mixed, of African, Indigenous, European, and mestiza heritage. They include figures from all social classes, geographic settings, and occupations seen in Latin America, and they acted over the entirety of the more than two centuries of the modern period. Through their stories, the reader comes away with a deeper understanding of this rich, diverse region.

In 1930s rural Argentina, a determined fifteen-year-old left an isolated, poverty-stricken life to find her fortune in the “Paris of South America”—Buenos Aires. There, with few connections, little education, but plenty of persistence, Maria Eva Duarte gained a toehold in the city’s artistic scene. Eva—Evita—then navigated the radio revolution to fortune, providing for her mother and siblings along the way. She caught the eye of rising political star Colonel Juan Perón, and with him, she rode the pro-labor wave all the way to the presidential palace. The story of Eva Duarte Perón highlights not just her own extraordinary life, but the opportunities seized by women of all classes and backgrounds in post-independence modernizing Latin America.This work offers an alternate method for understanding modern Latin America and its history. The ten figures treated are ethnically mixed, of African, Indigenous, European, and mestiza heritage. They include figures from all social classes, geographic settings, and occupations seen in Latin America, and they acted over the entirety of the more than two centuries of the modern period. Through their stories, the reader comes away with a deeper understanding of this rich, diverse region.

In 1930s rural Argentina, a determined fifteen-year-old left an isolated, poverty-stricken life to find her fortune in the “Paris of South America”—Buenos Aires. There, with few connections, little education, but plenty of persistence, Maria Eva Duarte gained a toehold in the city’s artistic scene. Eva—Evita—then navigated the radio revolution to fortune, providing for her mother and siblings along the way. She caught the eye of rising political star Colonel Juan Perón, and with him, she rode the pro-labor wave all the way to the presidential palace. The story of Eva Duarte Perón highlights not just her own extraordinary life, but the opportunities seized by women of all classes and backgrounds in post-independence modernizing Latin America.This work offers an alternate method for understanding modern Latin America and its history. The ten figures treated are ethnically mixed, of African, Indigenous, European, and mestiza heritage. They include figures from all social classes, geographic settings, and occupations seen in Latin America, and they acted over the entirety of the more than two centuries of the modern period. Through their stories, the reader comes away with a deeper understanding of this rich, diverse region.

Antes de la década de 1970, Colombia no tenía antecedentes de exportación de droga a gran escala; solo se convirtió en uno de los más importantes actores cuando llegaron contrabandistas estadounidenses al país a comienzos de esa década y comenzaron a pagar altos precios por la marihuana. Esta droga y luego la cocaína ocasionaron un tsunami de dólares ilegales en el país, que alimentó todo tipo de delitos. Los niveles de criminalidad y violencia aumentaron continuamente y, para fines del siglo XX, los colombianos se preguntaban si las instituciones nacionales podrían soportar el multifacético desorden financiado por un flujo masivo de dinero proveniente del narcotráfico. Para cuando los colombianos comenzaron finalmente a enfrentar la crisis de manera efectiva, después de 1999, más de 300.000 personas habían muerto a causa de actividades relacionadas con las drogas ilícitas. Fueron víctimas de una violencia cuya fuente eran los males de la caja de Pandora que había desencadenado el dinero de la droga.