Peculiarities of the Latin American Independence Revolutions: A Comparative Study with the American Revolution

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze the Latin American independence revolutions from a social and ideological perspective to contribute to revising the conventional wisdom of Latin American revolutionary history. The method chosen is a comparison between the aforementioned revolutions and the American Revolution, helping to demonstrate how, far from being a simple deviation or a failure, the Latin American independence revolutions had their own traits. The paper tries to answer mainly three questions: how Latin America and America received the enlightenment idea, how those ideas affected their revolutionary process, and how both regions rebuilt and restructured after the revolution.