Princeton University Press | Planeta Publishing

9786073909105 | Trade Paperback

History / Caribbean & West Indies

$18.95 USD

Exclusive rights for CA PR US VI

For centuries, Puerto Ricans have crafted and negotiated complex ideas about nationhood. Meléndez-Badillo provides a new history of Puerto Rico, highlighting the vibrant cultures of the archipelago in the centuries before the arrival of Columbus, and capturing the full sweep of Puerto Rico’s turbulent history in the centuries that followed, from the first indigenous insurrection against colonial rule by the powerful chieftain Agüeybaná II, to the establishment of the Commonwealth in 1952.

Puerto Rico is an engaging, sometimes personal, and consistently surprising history of colonialism, revolt, and the creation of a national identity, offering new perspectives not only on Puerto Rico and the Caribbean but also on the United States and the Atlantic world.

“It has been a double privilege to translate Jorell Meléndez-Badillo’s brilliant book into Spanish and to have been invited on board the inaugural journey of this wonderful series of collaborations between Princeton University Press and Grupo Planeta. Working with Meléndez-Badillo on the Spanish version of this beautifully written and thoroughly thought-out book was a delightful and illuminating experience; a translator’s dream.”

—Aurora Lauzardo, translator of Puerto Rico: A National History

“I finished reading this book with tears in my eyes. This is a book that many Puerto Ricans should read for their individual and collective good. With the rigor of a well-trained historian, Jorell Meléndez-Badillo goes beyond traditional accounts and, with clarity and precision, with courage and honesty, offers a national history of Puerto Rico and a call to conscience.”

—Aníbal González-Pérez, Yale University

Jorell Meléndez-Badillo is assistant professor of Latin American and Caribbean history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He is the author of The Lettered Barriada: Workers, Archival Power, and the Politics of Knowledge in Puerto Rico.

Meléndez-Badillo is a young Puerto Rican scholar who wishes to make the island’s history understandable for all.

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