Puerto Rico is a Spanish-speaking territory of the United States with a history shaped by conquest and resistance. For centuries, Puerto Ricans have crafted and negotiated complex ideas about nationhood. Jorell Mel茅ndez-Badillo provides a new history of Puerto Rico that gives voice to the archipelago鈥檚 people while offering a lens through which to understand the political, economic, and social challenges confronting them today.
In this masterful work of scholarship, Mel茅ndez-Badillo sheds light on the vibrant cultures of the archipelago in the centuries before the arrival of Columbus and captures the full sweep of Puerto Rico鈥檚 turbulent history in the centuries that followed, from the first indigenous insurrection against colonial rule in 1511鈥攍ed by the powerful chieftain Ag眉eyban谩 II鈥攖o the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1952. He deftly portrays the contemporary period and the intertwined though unequal histories of the archipelago and the continental United States.
Listen to a chapter from the book.
av福利社 the Author
Jorell Mel茅ndez-Badillo is assistant professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin鈥揗adison. He is the author of The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico.