Professor Leslie Bethell is Emeritus Professor of Latin American History in the University of London and an Emeritus Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford. He was Director of the University of London Institute of Latin American Studies from 1987 to 1992 and the University of Oxford Centre for Brazilian Studies from 1997 to 2007. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centro de Pesquisa e Documentacao de Historia Contemporanea do Brasil at the Fundacao Getulio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

"Leslie Bethell's monumental Latin American juggernaut continues to roll on. Those who are interested in Latin America between the onset of the Depression and the early 1990s will find a rich store of both information and argument in this double volume.... the contributors' scholarly credentials are impeccable. And the story they have to tell is both important and intrinsically fascinating.... as good a general survey as is currently available or perhaps conceivable." - Times Higher Education Supplement

"This international, interdisciplinary, collaborative scholarship, applied in a common effort to understand a complex historical period, is a principal strength of the work. Thoughtful editing under the guidance of Leslie Bethell has generally succeeded in creating a coherently inter-related set of essays...a sweeping data-rich solidly analytical survey." - Hispanic American Historical Review

"Any addition to the monumental Cambridge History provides a salient landmark for Latin American studies since the series offers both a unique teaching and research aid and a useful synopsis of the 'state-of-the-art' in the field. Volume VI - split into two sizable volumes - is no exception... a great deal of valuable scholarship is packed into these volumes... volumes that will be widely and profitably used, particularly by readers looking for up-to-date resumes of these grand, complex contemporary themes... The area covered by the contributors is enormous... their - generally - diligent mapping of modern Latin America has greatly enhanced our collective cognitive capacity." - Journal of Latin American Studies