Possible discussion questions:

  1. To what extent is a colonial past the tying factor between all Latin American countries?
  2. Can Latin America have a collective history at all? Is it ever appropriate to group together all people in Latin America, even though we do this daily by using the term?
  3. What differentiates Latin American history from other collective histories of peoples? For example, Canadian history, Spanish history, etc? Do other regions share histories, for example West African or Eastern European history? Or do we only do this for “Latin American” history?
  4. How can a “fragmentary present” and a “fragmentary past” be defined? (as noted on page 6 of the introduction).