Latin America in Colonial Times

A revised and inclusive edition that invites readers to engage with colonial Latin America through historians' methods and perspectives.

This textbook is for college students, instructors, and general readers interested in Latin America. In its third edition, all chapters have been revised and refined to reflect the latest dynamic scholarship. Students will learn how to interpret evidence, understand colonial societies, and connect the past to the modern world.The third edition of Latin America in Colonial Times is a thoroughly revised, argument driven textbook that details the meeting of three great civilizations on American soil in the sixteenth century. Matthew Restall and Kris Lane invite readers to engage with colonial Latin America as historians do – through interpretation, debate, and evidence, showing how colonial societies were constructed through encounter, conflict, and collaboration. The new edition has been revised and refined page by page, engaging closely with the latest and most dynamic scholarship. It models how to analyze sources, weigh competing explanations, and connect local case studies to broader historical questions. Spanning from the rise of empires in the fifteenth century to their collapse in the nineteenth, the chapters draw on the latest scholarship on Spain, Portugal, Atlantic Africa, and Latin America, with particular attention to Indigenous, African, and women's experiences.