The following review appeared in the February 2016 issue of CHOICE:
From the 1880s to the 1920s, anarchism provided the principle framework for anti-capitalist thought in Latin America. Historians de Laforcade and Shaffer have achieved admirable success in documenting, challenging, and expanding understanding of this history. These leading scholars offer the first volume to summarize the diversity of historiographic approaches that characterize a new wave of research on anarchism. Thirteen empirical case studies provide state-of-the-art yet accessible analyses that significantly expand understanding of the role of anarchism in Latin America. Rather than a diffused influence from Europe, the authors illustrate how anarchism emerged simultaneously and transnationally in Latin America. Among the significant gains in the conceptual, temporal, and geographic reach of this volume is a demonstration of how anarchist influences spread to remote corners of the continent and extended well into the 20th century. Key themes that run throughout the book include how anarchists engaged issues of culture, race, gender, and sexuality in both urban and rural areas of the region. This book will long be a standard text that provides a important reference for scholars and students of labor and social movement history. Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.