Continental rift

GILBERT M JOSEPH is enthused by a novel exploration of the intertwined stories of North and Latin America

- By Gilbert M Joseph

America, América: A New History of the New World by Greg Grandin Torva, 768 pages, £30

What is America? And who is an American? These questions lie at the heart of Greg Grandin’s provocative new book, which also wrestles with a broader question: do the Americas, North and South, share a common history?

Grandin undertakes a comparative exploration of “the New World’s long history of ideological and ethical contestation”, looking as far back as the Spanish conquest and the Puritan settlement, and as far forward as globalisation’s muddled present. His mode of analysis is steeped in what philosophers refer to as “immanent critique... a form of dissent in which challengers don’t dismiss the legitimacy of their rivals’ worldview but rather accuse them of not living up to their own stated ideals”. He sees it as a particularly useful method for considering the dynamic, interactive relationship between the two Americas, because Latin America gave the US what other empires lacked: “its own magpie, an irrepressible critic.”