Unearth the incredible history of one of South America's most beautiful countries. Colombia is an amazing country with a rich history, vibrant geography, and diverse people - now, inside this book, you'll uncover a profound and insightful exploration of this fascinating country, packed with detailed insights and interesting facts. Covering everything from the early history and development to colonization and Colombia's long journey to its place as a republic in the 21st century, this comprehensive guide is perfect for anyone looking to study this extraordinary country. Offering an exploration of the natural beauty and geographic elements of Colombia, this book also examines the country's economy and exports, the advances in science and technology which the country's scientists and doctors have pioneered, and the past and present governments who have built the groundwork to launch Colombia into the future. Colombia is a fascinating country with a rich story to tell. The History of Colombia is ideal for any fan of south America and world history, offering a powerful exploration of Colombia's past, present, and possible future. Buy now to unearth the history of Colombia today!

The History of Colombia

A history of the country from pre-Columbian times to the present, this title includes an in-depth look at the earliest years in Columbia's history which emphasizes the role geography played in shaping Columbia's economy, society, and politics and a thorough discussion of Columbian politics.

Colombia

This is the first English-language history of Colombia as a coffee-producer.

Coffee in Colombia, 1850-1970

Michael J. LaRosa and Germán R. Mejía offer a comprehensive approach to Colombian history in the post-independence era, from about 1810 to the present. This third edition includes vital updates that dive into the historic 2022 presidential election and signing of the Peace Accords with FARC in 2016. This deeply informed and accessible book thematically traces the history of Colombia, moving beyond the common perception of a failed state to explore the rich heritage and dynamism that have characterized Colombia past and present. The book focuses on the factors that have contributed to Colombia’s unification and development and looks at political projects, economic activity, and cultural development that have pushed Colombia forward. Also included are a photo essay, detailed chronology for further study and research, and a chapter dealing with Colombians abroad.

Social Protests in Colombia: A History, 1958-1990 examines social mobilization in Colombia through a variety of lenses in an interdisciplinary approach. Mauricio Archila-Neira incorporates theories from diverse social sciences including subaltern studies and postcolonial approaches to open up an intergenerational dialogue about political transformation and social change. Archila-Neira approaches this history from an objective viewpoint, offering an analysis from a distance not altered by emotion or hyperbole as he examines the values, traditions, and social collective action of subaltern sectors without external influence or motive. The book argues that academia bears the responsibility to put into play its accumulated symbolic capital to critically understand society, without abandoning the utopic effort to imagine another world is possible. Social Protests in Colombia teaches readers how to inhabit differences—of historical experiences, knowledge, and understandings—and why it is crucial to challenge a world that claims to be homogenous. Scholars of Latin American studies, sociology, political science, and history will find this book especially useful.

Social Protests in Colombia

In early April 1536, Gonzalo Jiménez de Quesada led a military expedition from the coastal city of Santa Marta deep into the interior of what is today modern Colombia. With roughly eight hundred Spaniards and numerous native carriers and black slaves, the Jiménez expedition was larger than the combined forces under Hernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro. Over the course of the one-year campaign, nearly three-quarters of Jiménez’s men perished, most from illness and hunger. Yet, for the 179 survivors, the expedition proved to be one of the most profitable campaigns of the sixteenth century. Unfortunately, the history of the Spanish conquest of Colombia remains virtually unknown. Through a series of firsthand primary accounts, translated into English for the first time, Invading Colombia reconstructs the compelling tale of the Jiménez expedition, the early stages of the Spanish conquest of Muisca territory, and the foundation of the city of Santa Fé de Bogotá. We follow the expedition from the Canary Islands to Santa Marta, up the Magdalena River, and finally into Colombia’s eastern highlands. These highly engaging accounts not only challenge many current assumptions about the nature of Spanish conquests in the New World, but they also reveal a richly entertaining, yet tragic, tale that rivals the great conquest narratives of Mexico and Peru.

Invading Colombia

In the wake of independence, Spanish American leaders perceived the colonial past as looming over their present. Crafting a Republic for the World examines how the vibrant postcolonial public sphere in Colombia invented narratives of the Spanish “colonial legacy.” Those supposed legacies included a lack of effective geographic knowledge, blockages to a circulatory political economy, existing patterns of land tenure, entrenched inequalities, and ignorance among popular sectors. At times collaboratively, and at times combatively, Colombian leaders tackled these “colonial” legacies to forge a republic in a hostile world of monarchies and empires. The highly partisan, yet uniformly republican public sphere crafted a vision of a virtuous nation that, unlike the United States, had already abolished slavery and included Indians as citizens. By the mid-nineteenth century, as suffrage expanded to all males over twenty-one, Colombian elites nevertheless tinkered with territorial divisions and devised new constitutions to manage the alleged “colonial legacy” affecting the minds of popular voters. The book explores how the struggle to be at the vanguard of radical republican equality fomented innovative contributions to social sciences, including geography, cartography, political ethnography, constitutional science, history, and the calculation of equity through land reform. Paradoxically, these efforts created a kind of legal pluralism reminiscent of the Spanish monarchy during the “colonial” period.

Crafting a Republic for the World

Treats in concise and objective manner the dominant historical, social, political, economic, and national security aspects of contemporary Colombia. Chapter bibliographies appear at the end of the book.

Colombia: A Country Study

This book describes and analyzes economic and political developments in Colombia during the final century of Spanish rule. Its purpose is threefold: first, to provide a general portrait of Colombian society during the late colonial period, showing the character of economic, social, and political life in the territory's principal regions; second, to assess the impact on the region of European imperialist expansion during the eighteenth century; and third, to provide a context for understanding the causes of independence. The book offers the only available survey of Colombian history and historiography for this period.

Colombia Before Independence

History of Colombia from the conquest and settlement to the modern Colombia. “When Alonso de Ojeda coasted along the Venezuelan shore in the spring of 1499 he stopped short just west of the Gulf of Maracaibo, near the present boundary between Venezuela and Colombia. The following year Rodrigo Bastida doubled the Goajira peninsula and pursued his voyage to the west, catching sight of the giant snowclad mountains of Santa Marta and of the low land which lies between them and the sea. Coming to the mouth of a great river on the day sacred to Saint Magdalene, he named it the Magdalena, and farther to the south-west found the fine harbour where the city of Cartagena now stands. At the head of the Gulf of Darien he came to another great river, the Atrato, and here his explorations stopped. More than a year later the great Columbus himself, on his fourth and last voyage, sighted the Central American coast at Cape Gracias á Dios, near the present boundary between Nicaragua and Honduras. Thence he sailed south-east along a pestilential shore for eight hundred miles, finally arriving near the point where Bastida had left off his explorations. It is said that Bartholomew Columbus founded a settlement on the Atlantic shore of the Isthmus, but it was soon destroyed by the neighbouring Indians. The long stretch of coast was unfit for the abode of Europeans, but the Indians had gold in abundance, and the Spaniards were satisfied that the interior was full of mines...”

The South American Republics: History of Colombia

This book reveals the history behind the trade of Colombian birds as a means of comprehending the scientific, economic and environmental relations between the United States and Colombia from the 1880s to the 1960s. Through the study of the feather trade, scientific expeditions, scientific communities and nature conservation, the author brings to light how international relations and national agendas shaped the study and perception of nature in both countries during those years.

Birds of empire, birds of nation : a history of science, economy, and conservation in United States-Colombia relations

"I simply cannot think of an example of recent scholarship on Latin America that I found as thoroughly rewarding and enjoyable as this study."—Charles Bergquist, University of Washington

The Making of Modern Colombia

This book presents an insider's account of Columbia's internal conflict. At the forefront are the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People's Army (FARC-EP). Although they are one of the most powerful military forces in Latin American history, little is known about the FARC-EP. James J. Brittain explains where and why this political military movement came into existence and assesses whether the methods employed by the insurgency have the potential to free those marginalised in Colombia. As democratic socialism develops in Venezuela and Bolivia, Brittain's fascinating study assesses the relevance of armed struggle to 21st century Latin American politics. This is an essential title for those wishing to develop a full understanding of the continent.

Revolutionary Social Change in Colombia

For more than fifty years, the United States supported the Colombian military in a war that cost over 200,000 lives. During a single period of heightened U.S. assistance known as Plan Colombia, the Colombian military killed more than 5,000 civilians. In Plan Colombia John Lindsay-Poland narrates a 2005 massacre in the San José de Apartadó Peace Community and the subsequent investigation, official cover-up, and response from the international community. He examines how the multibillion-dollar U.S. military aid and official indifference contributed to the Colombian military's atrocities. Drawing on his human rights activism and interviews with military officers, community members, and human rights defenders, Lindsay-Poland describes grassroots initiatives in Colombia and the United States that resisted militarized policy and created alternatives to war. Although they had few resources, these initiatives offered models for constructing just and peaceful relationships between the United States and other nations. Yet, despite the civilian death toll and documented atrocities, Washington, DC, considered Plan Colombia's counterinsurgency campaign to be so successful that it became the dominant blueprint for U.S. military intervention around the world.

Plan Colombia

"This book disputes the commonly held view that Colombia's armed conflict is a result of state absence or failure, providing broader lessons about the real drivers of political violence in war-torn areas"--

The Frontier Effect

Critical analysis of Plan Colombia, a multibillion dollar US counternarcotics initiative.

The Losing War

Although they have never made up more than 3% of Colombia's population, individual Germans and German companies have been present in every era of the nation's history. the object of this book is to provide an overview of German involvement in Colombia from the sixteenth century conquest to the ears after World War II in order to demonstrate that their contributions to the nation's development has bee far more significant than their scant numbers suggest.

Germans in the History of Colombia from Colonial Times to the Present

Colombia has not known a single day of peace since its inception: this book is an urgent political narrative setting out to tell the tragic story of a people who, despite everything, remain unbroken.

Looking at the years 1870-2016, this book analyses the reasons behind Colombia’s chronically slow economic growth. As a comparative economic history, it examines why Colombia has seen lower growth rates than countries with similar institutions, culture and colonial origins, such as Argentina in 1870-1914, Mexico in 1930-1980, and Chile from 1982 onwards. While Colombia's history has shown relative macroeconomic stability, it has also shown a limited capacity for integrating into the world economy and embracing technological breakthroughs compared to the rest of the world, including steam, mass production and Information Technology. This volume thus moves away from the long-held view that institutional path dependence is the main determinant of differences in long-run economic growth across countries.

Colombia’s Slow Economic Growth

The appearance of Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886-1910, had several important consequences for the entire field of Latin American history, as well as for the study of Colombia. Through Bergquist's analysis of this transitional period in terms of what has been called the dependency theory, he has left his mark on all subsequent studies in Latin American affairs; questions of economic development and political alignment cannot be dealt with without confronting Bergquist's work. he has also provided a major contribution to Colombian history by his examination of the growth of the coffee industry and Thousand Days War.

Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886-1910

In the horrific conflict of 1914–1918 known first as “The Great War” and later as World War I, Latin American nations were peripheral players. Only after the U.S. entered the fighting in 1917 did eight of the twenty republics declare war. Five others broke diplomatic relations with Germany, while seven maintained strict neutrality. These diplomatic stances, even those of the two actual belligerents—Brazil and Cuba—did little to tip the balance of victory in favor of the allies, and perhaps that explains why historians have paid scant attention to events in Latin America related to the war. Nevertheless, it is still remarkable that Percy Alvin Martin’s classic account, Latin American and the War, first published in 1925, remains the standard text on the topic. This book attempts to redress this gap by taking a fresh look at developments between 1914 and 1921 in one of the neutral nations—Colombia. This period, which coincides with the presidency of José Vicente Concha (1914–1918) and his successor, Marco Fidel Suárez (1918–1921), is filled with momentous developments not only in foreign policy, when Colombian diplomats pressured by German, British and U.S. propaganda struggled to maintain strict neutrality, but also on the domestic scene as the newly installed Conservative regime faced political and economic crises that sparked numerous and violent protests. Rausch's examination of the administrations of Concha and Suárez supports Martin’s assertion that even those countries neutral in the Great War were not immune from its effects.

Colombia and World War I

As in every modern economy daily life in Colombia is shaped by institutions that channel the lifeblood of the country: money. As a former government minister, an academic economist and a board member of the 'fed' of Colombia, the author presents a broad view of the financial history of the oldest and presently second largest classic economy in South America, covering 500 years of change in banking and monetary policy. Colombia's financial institutions, banks, and governmental monetary policies evolved through long periods of struggles to serve modernisation and stability in a region with many contrary forces at work. Profusely illustrated, it serves as a catalogue of Colombian currency from its Independence to the present. This is a book of high academic value that is also a pleasure to read.

A Monetary History of Colombia

Since the late 1990s, the United States has funneled billions of dollars in aid to Colombia, ostensibly to combat the illicit drug trade and State Department-designated terrorist groups. The result has been a spiral of violence that continues to take lives and destabilize Colombian society. This book asks an obvious question: are the official reasons given for the wars on drugs and terror in Colombia plausible, or are there other, deeper factors at work? Scholars Villar and Cottle suggest that the answers lie in a close examination of the cocaine trade, particularly its class dimensions. Their analysis reveals that this trade has fueled extensive economic growth and led to the development of a "narco-state" under the control of a "narco-bourgeoisie" which is not interested in eradicating cocaine but in gaining a monopoly over its production. The principal target of this effort is the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who challenge that monopoly as well as the very existence of the Colombian state. Meanwhile, U.S. business interests likewise gain from the cocaine trade and seek to maintain a dominant, imperialist relationship with their most important client state in Latin America. Suffering the brutal consequences, as always, are the peasants and workers of Colombia. This revelatory book punctures the official propaganda and shows the class war underpinning the politics of the Colombian cocaine trade.

Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror

At a time when a global consensus on human rights standards seems to be emerging, this rich study steps back to explore how the idea of human rights is actually employed by activists and human rights professionals. Winifred Tate, an anthropologist and activist with extensive experience in Colombia, finds that radically different ideas about human rights have shaped three groups of human rights professionals working there--nongovernmental activists, state representatives, and military officers. Drawing from the life stories of high-profile activists, pioneering interviews with military officials, and research at the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Counting the Dead underscores the importance of analyzing and understanding human rights discourses, methodologies, and institutions within the context of broader cultural and political debates.

Counting the Dead

Violence In Colombia provides students with a deeper understanding of the crisis facing Colombia today. The book focuses on the 1990s, a decade that witnessed a strengthening of the oldest and largest guerrilla insurgency in the Americas and the emergence of a powerful paramilitary right. The decade also saw a dramatic rise in homicide, kidnapping, and human rights violations that made Colombia by far the most violent nation in the hemisphere. But the 1990s was also about negotiating peace. The decade began with negotiations between the government and some of the guerrilla groups that led to their demobilization and to the important reforms codified in the Constitution of 1991. It ended with another serious attempt at negotiating peace, a historic agreement between the government and the largest and most powerful of the guerrilla groups to put a range of social and economic reforms on the negotiating table. For many, the crisis in Colombia is understood in terms of the drug trade. To be sure, the drug trade is implicated in every aspect of the crisis. And despite (or because of?) escalating efforts by the Colombian and U.S. governments to curb the trade, Colombia's role as the leading supplier of cocaine, and increasingly of heroin, to the U.S. market continues to expand. But the drug trade, by itself, cannot explain the crisis. If it could, why have other Latin American drug-producing and trafficking nations not experienced a fate like Colombia's? To answer this question, the book presents some of the best recent work by Colombian scholars on the crisis facing the nation. Violence in Colombia also includes a large section devoted to primary documents, which enables students to get a feel for the views of the protagonists in the conflict and judge for themselves the meaning of what they say. Examples include the negotiating positions of the government, the guerrillas, and the paramilitary right; testimony by kidnap victims and human rights lawyers; and assessments by U.S. officials and Colo

Violence in Colombia, 1990-2000

Examines the efforts of four presidential administrations to establish effective rule over Colombia's frontier territories between 1930 and 1946. The text focuses on the impact of their policies and reforms on the region of the Llanos Orientales.

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The Santander Regime in Gran Colombia

Garry Leech has written the definitive introduction to the FARC, examining the group's origins, aims, and ideology, and looking at its organizational and operational structures. The book also investigates the FARC's impact on local, regional, and global politics and explores its future direction. 'Rebels' is an exciting and innovative new series looking at contemporary rebel groups and their place in global politics. Written by leading experts, the books serve as definitive introductions to the individual organizations, whilst seeking to place them within a broader geographical and political framework. They examine the origins, ideology and future direction of each group, whilst posting such questions as 'When does a "rebel" political movement become a "terrorist" organization?' and 'What are the social-economic drivers behind political violence?'. Provocative and original, the series is essential reading for anyone interested in how rebel groups operate today.

The FARC

Provides a quick reference to a nation whose history reaches back to 10,000 BC. Includes material from all major periods, 14th century to the present.

Historical Dictionary of Colombia

The history of Colombia, Long before the arrival of the first Spanish explorers, Indian groups had settled in the area of present-day Colombia. The Mesoamericans (Indians originally inhabiting Central America), who arrived in approximately 1200 B.C., introduced the cultivation of corn. They were followed by a second wave of Mesoamericans in 500 B.C. Artifacts from a number of distinct cultures, such as those in the areas around San Agustín (in present-day Huila Department), Tierra Dentro (Cauca Department), and Tumaco (Nariño Department), are believed to date from this period. Between 400 and 300 B.C., the Chibchas traveled from Nicaragua and Honduras and reached Colombia, shortly before the Arawaks arrived from other parts of South America, such as Brazil, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Near the end of the first millennium A.D., the Caribs migrated from the Caribbean islands. These warlike newcomers supplanted the Chibchas in the lowlands and forced them to move to higher elevations. The book titled Colombia history has the entire history of Colombia pre colonization era and later period, development, people, government politics, investments

Colombia History, and Pre-Columbian Era

Violence, Conflict, and Politics in Colombia

History of Colombia

Colombia has long suffered under such violence that it is now one of the most convulsed societies in the world. Far from being the result of solely the drug trade, the country's contemporary crisis stems from La Violencia (The Violence), a period of terror, political banditry and peasant unrest that plagued Colombia between the 1940s and the 1960s. The 14 essays in this collection examine La Violencia and its effects on current conditions, placing today's violence in its historical context.

Violence in Colombia

Colombia's history is marked by its indigenous roots, Spanish colonization, independence, and political turbulence. Before the Spanish arrival in 1499, it was home to advanced civilizations like the Muisca and Tairona. The Spanish conquest led to the establishment of the Viceroyalty of New Granada in the 16th century. Colombia gained independence in 1819 under Simón Bolívar but faced internal divisions that dissolved Gran Colombia into separate nations. The 19th and 20th centuries were characterized by struggles between conservatives and liberals, culminating in periods of civil war, including La Violencia (1948–1958). In recent decades, Colombia has grappled with drug cartels, armed conflicts with guerrilla groups like the FARC, and efforts to establish peace and economic stability, achieving a peace accord with the FARC in 2016.