Introduction

Abstract

Why would we seek to “rethink” Latin America today from a critical global development perspective? For one, Latin America is assuming an increasingly important position on the world stage with its heterodox economic policies and bold political experiments attracting worldwide attention in an era characterized by a general crisis of perspectives. Another reason is that most of the countries in the region achieved their independence between 1810 and 1820 so we are now two hundred years into political independence and thus a balance sheet would be useful. At its origins, as a land colonized by the European powers from 1500 onward, Latin America played a key role in the modernization and enrichment of Europe. Today Europe is in crisis—in economic, political, social, cultural, and even moral terms—and the whole Enlightenment discourse is in question. Is it possible that Latin America is now showing Europe where it is heading? Marx was always fond of saying “de te fabula narratur” referring to the way in which an understanding of industrial England showed the rest of the world where it was heading. Today the very complex, dynamic, conflictual but above all, original processes of development, new constructions of hegemony, and vision of social transformation in Latin America offer a fascinating laboratory for the rest of the world and, maybe, a mirror to the future.