Latin American Constitutionalism,1810-2010 The Engine Room of the Constitution

• Takes a synthetic and broad view of past two centuries of Latin American constitutionalism
• Landmark comparative constitutional history
• Takes a multidisciplinary perspective

Latin America possesses an enormously rich constitutional history, but this legal history has only recently begun to be subjected to scholarly inquiry. As Roberto Gargarella contends, contemporary constitutional and political theory has a great deal to learn from this history, as Latin American constitutionalism has endured unique challenges that have not appeared in other regions. Such challenges include the emergence of egalitarian constitutions in inegalitarian contexts; deliberation over the value of "importing" foreign legal instruments; a long-standing exercise of socio-economic rights (which is only just starting in other areas of the world); issues of multiculturalism and indigenous rights; substantial experience with "unbalanced" versions of the system of "checks and balances" (due to the presence of so-called hyper-presidentialist regimes); and the succession of numerous and frequent
constitutional changes. In this landmark book, Gargarella provides a broadly comparative history of Latin American constitutionalism, informed by constitutional theory. He organizes the book across four major historical periods of Latin American legal history, infusing this history with a discussion of the ideas of thinkers including Juan Bautista Alberdi, Francisco Bilbao, Simón Bolívar; Juan Egaña, José González Vigil, Victorino Lastarria, Juan Carlos Mariátegui, Juan Montalvo, José María Mora, Mariano Otero, Manuel Murillo Toro, José María Samper and Domingo Sarmiento.

Readership: Students and scholars interested in Latin American studies, constitutional theory, legal history, comparative politics, or political philosophy; required reading for Comparative Law, Comparative Politics, or Democratization at graduate or undergraduate levels