South America

In the 19th century British interest in South America was a significant as in any of the colonies or dominions. But after 1914 it declined. Rory Miller explains how and why.

Peter Beck looks back on the importance of Argentina's history.

The Argentinian writer Borges described the combatants in the Falklands War as being like 'two bald men fighting over a comb.' But thirty years before, Britain and Argentina nearly came to blows over territory far more remote and inhospitable.

Christopher Abel and Colin M. Lewis analyse the state of history writing on Latin America, from a 1980s standpoint.

'America has not come to terms with its own history ... and regards Latin American nationalism as a conspiracy against its inevitable and popular domination of the western hemisphere.

Peter J. Beck explores how Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands has involved diplomacy carried on by cartographic and philatelic means for nearly two centuries.

The Italian patriot's style of leadership – and his famous red shirts – were a legacy of his South American experience and proved an inspiration to Latin American radicals for many generations.

The tango was to Argentina what jazz was to New Orleans. As Simon Collier explains, it swept the world in the pre-First World War era and Carlos Gardel was its star.

The epic voyage of this Elizabethan adventurer to Peru and his subsequent capture by its Spanish masters inspired Charles Kingsley's Westward Ho! An article by A.L. Rowse. 

After gaining its independence from Spain in 1824, Peru experienced a boom as a result of demand for guano as a fertiliser. As John Peter Olinger details, the boom came to an end when it was replaced by nitrate as the preferred fertiliser, and Chile seized Peruvian nitrate deposits in the War of the Pacific from 1879-84.