In the 1920s and 1930s, Latin American radicals engaged in urgent debates over how to combat racism, resist empire, and reimagine the nation-state. Drawing on a global array of sources, Radical Sovereignty reconstructs these transnational discussions that unfolded in such far-flung locations as Mexico City, Buenos Aires, Havana, Moscow, and Brussels. Energized by the Mexican and Russian Revolutions, communists, trade unionists, peasant organizers, and anti-imperial activists emerged from these debates with innovative ideas for addressing historical oppressions, including proposals for a pan-continental confederation and calls to grant Black and Indigenous peoples in the Americas the right to form their own sovereign states. While these projects did not come to fruition, they left an enduring mark on Latin America's political landscape, bequeathing approaches to race, ethnicity, and self-determination that have resurfaced in recent years.
Tony Wood is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Colorado Boulder. He is author of Chechnya: The Case for Independence and Russia without Putin: Money, Power, and the Myths of the New Cold War.
"A pathbreaking exploration of Black and Indigenous lefts in interwar Latin America that shows the myriad and fascinating ways in which those movements rethought and challenged the nation-state. In Tony Wood’s nuanced and ambitious account—one that moves effortlessly between Moscow, Mexico City, Havana, and more—the reader encounters forgotten or misunderstood paths not taken. A must-read for anyone interested in the global history of the left and its relation to questions of race and self-determination."—Ada Ferrer, Professor of History, Princeton University
"Wood draws a vivid picture of Latin America’s architects of liberation, those who forged an anti-imperialist and anti-racist path to sovereignty and whose legacy was 1960s internationalism."—Tanalís Padilla, author of Unintended Lessons of Revolution: Student Teachers and Political Radicalism in Twentieth-Century Mexico
"Wood provides a clear-headed investigation of Latin America’s Communist and anti-imperialist left, its efforts to forge a global revolutionary agenda, and its debates around race, class, and nation."—Karin Rosemblatt, author of The Science and Politics of Race in Mexico and the United States, 1910–1950
362 pp.6 x 9Illus: 10 b/w illustrations
9780520391260$29.95|£25.00Paper
Dec 2025