Where Did Argentina’s Firebrand New President Get His Political Ideas?

Javier Milei Has Changed the Meaning of Libertad From Collective Struggle to Libertarianism—With Help from the U.S. Right

Last month, Argentina swore in as president yet another right-wing populist with mutton chops and bad hair who built a political career out of screaming at people on television with threatening chutzpah.

Javier Milei’s signature campaign proposal was dollarizing Argentina’s economy, which both the Financial Times and the Economist criticized as a death blow to the country’s economic sovereignty. He has backed away from that proposal since being elected but has kept others, such as shutting down all public infrastructure work unless privately funded and slashing regulations and subsidies on everything …

A ‘Tragedy and a Miracle’ in the Andes

Society of the Snow Revisits a 1972 Plane Crash—And Helps Explain Why It Remains Ingrained in the Uruguayan National Memory

At the beginning of Society of the Snow, Spain’s entry for Best International Feature Film for the upcoming Academy Awards, there is a scene in a Catholic church in Montevideo, …

Why Did Governments Compensate Slaveholders for Abolition?

Across the Americas, Emancipation Moved Slowly, and Profited Those Who Had Benefited from Slavery Most

The records are difficult to make out at first—blurred rows listing the names of slaveholders, enslaved individuals, and prices under the dim light of the microfilm reader. But once brought …

A Tale of Two Venezuelan Diasporas

After a Forced Exodus, We’re All Rebuilding Our Lives. Geography, Time, and Class Only Seem to Deepen Our Divides

American media covers only two types of the 7 million-plus immigrants who have left Venezuela in the past decade.

The first consists of the refugees and asylum seekers who walked across …

The Forgotten History of Brazil’s Concentration Camps | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Forgotten History of Brazil’s Concentration Camps

In the Early 20th Century, Authorities Hid Thousands of Impoverished Rural People Trying to Escape Drought

This is an excerpt from Brazilian social critic and novelist Rachel de Queiroz’s first book Os Quinze. Published in 1930 and later translated in English as The Fifteen, it refers …

How a 16th-Century Bolivian Silver Mine Invented Modern Capitalism

Potosí’s Coins Ruled the Globe But Their Costs Included Violence and Environmental Destruction

Gold has always attracted special attention for its color, malleability, and resistance to oxidation, but silver has long held a close second place. Its relative abundance in relation to gold …