George Reid Andrews. Afro‐Latin America, 1800–2000. New York: Oxford University Press. 2004. Pp. viii, 284. $19.95

George Reid Andrews's tour de force draws on a breath‐taking range of scholarship published in and on Latin America to make a powerful argument about the contributions of blacks and mulattos to national and regional histories. This book pays as much attention to class as to race. Andrews carefully differentiates among the varied experiences and strategies of poor and middle‐class Afro‐Latin American women and men, and he voices some provocative opinions about their past and future political mobilization.

In addition to consulting the English‐language literature, Andrews draws from many works in Spanish and Portuguese that have remained largely unknown to Anglophone readers. Importantly, the book places Brazil in constant counterpoint to its Spanish‐American neighbors (rather than the common practice of comparing Brazil primarily to the United States). Attention is paid to Afro‐Latin American populations in diverse countries ranging from Uruguay...