A sweeping yet intimate exploration of Latin America's political history, Forging Latin America profiles fifty-two of the region's most influential figures who, for better or worse, have shaped its character and destiny from the Spanish Conquest to the present day. This polyphonic gathering of dictators, reformers, revolutionaries, artists, writers, priests, and activists not only foregrounds the major political developments since 1492 but also spotlights lesser-known stories of hope, change, and resistance from the ground up. Along the way, the book shows how ideas can bring down a government or build one, how power corrodes ideology until the perpetuation of power becomes an ideology in and of itself, and how the intellectual heritage of Latin America has been used, disputed, and reinvented over five astonishing centuries.