Robert Scheina's latest book, drawn upon years of research, lecturing, and teaching in the field, is a groundbreaking and definitive study of Latin American military history. Despite the pivotal role of wars in U.S. history, few in the United States understand their effect elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. This volume examines the various wars for independence in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries in Latin America and the area's conflicts with the United States. Scheina concludes with the beginnings of overt U.S. political intervention in the region. He focuses on operational history in the context of war as an instrument of politics and society, including insightful analyses of the military as an institution and its relations with civilian government. Latin America's Wars fills a void in the literature, broadens U.S. readers' understanding of their neighbors, and serves as a launching point for new scholarship.