In this majestic and unorthodox book, James Dunkerley visits the Americas of the 1850s. Drawing on a range of contemporary sources from Walt Whitman to Darwin,Trollope, Marx and Sarmiento, Dunkerley adopts an Atlanticist perspective — Ireland, for instance, is treated as an American country in exile — for this appraisal of the first steps in American modernity.

Americana is arranged around major themes of time and space, culture, politicai economy, and international relations. Between these more general discussions are transcripts of three court cases from the period which both divert and illuminate: John Mitchel's 1848 conviction for treason in Dublin led him through Bermuda, Tasmania and Nicaragua before he joined the Confederate cause in the US Civil War. Myra Gaines' suit for the return of her legacy in New Orleans reveals her Sligo-born father to have conspired against Jefferson and treated with Napoleon's agents in the sale of Louisiana. Mariano Muñoz's trial for releasing a prisoner on Good Friday in the style of Pontius Pilate draws the curtain back on Francisco Burdett O'Connor, prefect of Tarija, elder brother of the Chartist leader Feargus, and Bolívar's chief of staff.

“One of our leading historians of Latin America and an authoritative an widely read commentator on its recent affairs.” — The Guardian

James Dunkerley is Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies, University of London and the editor of The Journal of Latin American Studies. His previous books include Power in the Isthmus, The Pacification of Central America, Political Suicide in Latin America, Rebellion in the Veins, The Long War, and Warriors and Scribes.

 Publication
May 2000

600 pages
30 b/w illustrations

Cloth
1 85984 753 6
US$40 / £27 / CAN$55