The ghost of Hernán Cortés: the colonial heritage in the Americas in the Cold War and post-Cold War era

Abstract

In this article I explore a range of approaches to the colonial heritage (or colonial heritages) in the Americas in both their popular and academic iterations during the Cold War and the post-Cold War era. Overall, I argue that the most obvious elements of the Hispanic colonial heritage are cultural and linguistic, as well as various forms of economic dependence and high levels of socio-economic inequality. Economic dependence and social inequality remain a central, if now diffuse, Hispanic colonial heritage, as does the diverse cultural and linguistic post-colonial milieu that is the New World. Over three decades out from the end of the Cold War, the cultural complexity, shifting economic contours and geographical diffusion of the Hispanic colonial heritage is more apparent than ever at the same time as (contrary to several recent accounts) it hangs no heavier over the present than the Anglo-Protestant colonial heritage; nor should either be deployed to do too much heavy lifting as far as explaining contemporary developmental outcomes is concerned.