Santillana and Mapfre launch the collection Latin America and Contemporary History

The Fundación Mapfre and Grupo Santillana have agreed to collaborate on a joint venture which will see 95 volumes on Latin American history published by Taurus.

The collection, entitled Latin America and Contemporary History and due hit the shelves over the next three years, aims at taking the reader far beyond the local and regional by evaluating the common patterns and dynamics of Latin American history. To accompany the series of books, to which 425 historians have contributed, there will be ten photography exhibitions. The first will be held in Santiago de Chile in March 2010 to coincide with the international congress of Spanish Language Academies.

For Emiliano Martínez, president of Grupo Santillana, the project will enable us to review contemporary national history "from the common starting point of a break in the Iberian colonial model sparked by the Napoleonic invasion of the Iberian peninsula." According to Pablo Jiménez, director of the Instituto de Cultura de la Fundación Mapfre, the project "aims to go beyond the most specialized academic circles".

The analysis of each country will be carried out using two criteria: the division into homogenous chronological periods and the use of a common framework in each volume. In the initial phase, the series will look at Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Portugal and the US. In total, almost 50 books will be published. In the second phase, concentrating on the remaining Latin American counties as well as a number of European states, a further 50 books will be published.