Dr. Woodward was professor of Latin American history at the University of North Carolina (1963-1970), Tulane University (1970-1999), and Texas Christian University (1999-2003). He also was a Visiting Professor at the National and Catholic Universities of Chile and Argentina, and at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. His earlier publications on Central American history include Class Privilege and Economic Development: The Consulado de Comercio of Guatemala, 1793-1871 ( University of North Carolina Press, 1966); Research Guide to Central America and the Caribbean (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985); Central America: Historical Perspectives on the Contemporary Crises (Greenwood Press, 1988); Guatemala (World Bibliographic Series, 1992); Rafael Carrera and the Emergence of the Republic of Guatemala, 1821-1871 (University of Georgia Press, 1993); and Central America: A Nation Divided (3rd ed., Oxford University Press, 1999).

In A SHORT HISTORY OF GUATEMALA, Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr. (Ph.D., Tulane University, 1962) briefly synthesizes the exciting history of Guatemala from its ancient Maya heritage to the present. Based on nearly a half-century of research on the history of this Central American republic, the work highlights the political, economic,and social evolution of Guatemala, with particular emphasis on the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With keen insight into the struggle for economic and social development since national independence in 1821, Woodward offers a new interpretation of the country's past and present.