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The principal book collections for the Institute of the Americas are the American History and Latin American History collections. These collections are located on the second floor of the Main Library.
Explore is UCL's library catalogue. This is the principal tool to find books, journals and other materials (either in print or in electronic format) held in UCL libraries. On the catalogue, you will find details such as: library site, collection and shelfmark, when you are looking for print resources. In order to access e-books via Explore, you will always need your UCL user ID and password.
Print books are arranged on the shelf according to their shelfmark. For example:
AMERICAN HISTORY R 790 OBA for biographical and autobiographical works on and by Barack Obama.
LATIN AMER. HIST. D 5 CHA for a comprehensive work in the history of the Independence period, 1808-1830.
The social research book collection at the Institute of Education (IOE) Library houses material on sociology, social policy, gender and sexuality, race, media studies, and religion. There may be relevant material relating to the Americas as this location too.
This book traces guaraná’s journey from a sacred pre-Columbian crop of the Sateré-Mawé in the Amazon to a global commodity and Brazilian national symbol. Seth Garfield explores how colonialism, science, and marketing transformed guaraná into the centerpiece of a multibillion-dollar beverage industry, revealing its role in shaping Brazil’s social hierarchies, environmental change, and myths of modernity.
Urban Dwellings, Haitian Citizenships examines the failed international reconstruction of Port-au-Prince after the 2010 earthquake and contrasts it with Haitian-led rebuilding efforts. It argues that international development strategies institutionalize instability, while everyday Haitians transform urban spaces to create belonging and citizenship rooted in resistance to extractive economies. Through scenes of ruined industrial projects and city life, the book reflects on what dwelling means in post-disaster landscapes.
Money shapes our lives as a problem, goal, motivator, and measure of worth—but what happens when communities reinvent it? For 25 years, grassroots activists in Medellín, Colombia, have used barter markets and community currencies to rebuild social ties torn by violence and create an economy based on respect and reciprocity. Social Exchange by Brian J. Burke offers an ethnographic look at this movement, revealing the cultural and material impacts of capitalism and narco-violence, and exploring radical alternatives to urban life and post-capitalist possibilities.
This study uses household survey data to derive subjective poverty lines for seven Latin American countries and compares them with objective measures. Subjective poverty is consistently higher, with most identified poor either poor by both measures or only subjectively. Overlap varies by country, and unemployment and informality explain why some feel poor despite higher incomes. Non-income factors tied to economic security reduce perceived poverty, and welfare stigma appears absent.
Incumbency Bias challenges the traditional view that incumbency guarantees electoral success. It argues that democratic institutions determine whether incumbency is an asset or liability by shaping the match between citizens’ expectations and incumbents’ ability to deliver. Using comparative evidence from Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, the book shows that democracy can create an uneven playing field when voters demand good governance but lack information. While focused on Latin America, its insights apply globally to understanding the electoral returns of holding office.
Erotic Cartographies explores how Trinidadian same-sex-loving women use gender performance, erotic autonomy, and space-making to challenge colonial norms and invisibility. Through mapping exercises and personal narratives, the book reveals how they redefine public/private spaces, family, and spirituality to resist structural and symbolic violence.
Analyses decolonisation and non-sovereignty in the Caribbean, including grassroots protest movements, offshore finance and remittance culture. Covering global history and politics, as well as contemporary Caribbean history, this book will appeal to historians, political scientists and students of decolonisation, non-sovereignty and colonialism.
Racialized Visions is the first English-language volume examining Haiti’s cultural impact on Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico. Centering Haiti, it reveals how race—and anti-Blackness—shaped regional and academic narratives since 1804, when colonial powers cast Haiti as a symbol of Blackness and barbarism. This collection of twelve essays challenges that legacy, showing how artists and intellectuals reimagined Haiti as a symbol of liberation. Edited by Vanessa K. Valdés with a foreword by Myriam J. A. Chancy, it offers historical context and insights into Afro-Latinx studies.
Exploring the Mesoamerican Subterranean Realm examines how pre-Columbian cultures used caves and constructed underground spaces for sacred, political, and economic purposes. Through case studies, it challenges traditional views of chultuns, sascaberas, and pilgrimage, revealing a vast subterranean sacred landscape central to Mesoamerican life.
Buyers Beware offers a fresh lens on consumption in Caribbean popular culture. Revisiting representations from dancehall and “sistah lit”—genres rejecting middle-class respectability—Patricia Joan Saunders treats these texts with the same rigor as dominant cultural narratives. She explores how their focus on fashion, music, sex, fast food, and television illuminates the construction and performance of race, class, gender, sexuality, and national politics within the Caribbean.
The Handbook of Latin American Environmental Aesthetics examines artistic and conceptual approaches to the more-than-human environment across literature, performance, film, and activism. It revisits key ideas—ecocriticism, extractivism, multinaturalism—while connecting them to race theory, energy humanities, queer/trans studies, and infrastructure studies. By tracing genealogies and mapping debates, it shows how cultural production addresses urgent environmental issues and challenges the nature/culture divide, offering tools for environmental humanities and Latin American studies.
In the 1970s, Latin American theologians were instrumental in developing the concept of integral mission. This volume explores how contemporary Latin American theologians are building on the legacy of integral mission--and the controversies it raised--to reflect on a wide range of issues such as the economy, culture, the environment, discrimination, and transcultural missions. Drawing on authors from across the continent, this volume offers valuable insights into the diversity and richness of current Latin American missiological reflection.
From Jackson to Bush, U.S. presidents have used rhetoric to define national identity—expanding citizenship for some while justifying exclusion of others. Stuckey traces two centuries of presidential speech, showing how shared ideals and historical references are deployed to naturalize inclusion or legitimize marginalization, revealing shifting boundaries of “us” and “them.”
For centuries, racism and discrimination have blocked economic opportunity for African Americans, leaving Black households with just 10 cents for every dollar of white wealth. This book makes a powerful case for reparations, documenting the cumulative harm of slavery, Jim Crow, and ongoing discrimination, calculating the cost of justice denied, and proposing substantial direct payments to descendants of U.S. slavery.
Hemispheric foreign policy has waxed and waned since the Mexican War, and the Cold War presented both extraordinary promises and dangerous threats to U.S.-Latin American cooperation. In Hemispheric Alliances , Andrew J. Kirkendall examines the strengths and weaknesses of new models for U.S.-Latin American relations created by liberal Democrats who came to the fore during the Kennedy administration and retained significant influence until the Reagan era.
Operation Pedro Pan examines the Cold War program that brought over 14,000 unaccompanied Cuban children to the U.S. between 1961 and 1962. Sponsored by the Miami Catholic Diocese, government agencies, and anti-Castro groups, the initiative provided care for 8,300 minors through foster and group homes nationwide. Drawing on interviews and newly uncovered sources, the book reveals how and why this unprecedented effort was conceived.
This biography of Colonel Lionel Jobert d’Epineuil (1829–1881) explores the exploits of a French-born adventurer whose ambition outweighed allegiance during the American Civil War. A ship captain with an Atlantic identity, Jobert leveraged political instability in Haiti and the U.S. to advance his own interests. Drawing on previously unused sources, Stephen D. Bosworth offers a vivid portrait of a foreign participant whose life adds a striking tile to the mosaic of nineteenth-century Atlantic history.
Life Undocumented explores the experiences of Latinx undocumented young adults in two contrasting contexts: California, with legal pathways to higher education, and Georgia, with restrictive policies. Through these distinct “legal ecologies,” the book reveals how intersecting federal, state, local, and personal dynamics shape daily life and future aspirations for undocumented youth.
Primary Elections and American Politics traces the roots of polarization, negative partisanship, and declining trust in U.S. politics to the rise of direct partisan primaries. Chapman Rackaway and Joseph Romance provide a comprehensive history of this Progressive-era reform, arguing that its creators mistook direct democracy for participatory democracy—setting the stage for many of today’s political ills.
Thirty years after its original release, the new edition of Racial Formation in the United States radically revises each chapter while preserving its core mission: to explain how race is constructed, contested, and embedded in identities and institutions. Michael Omi and Howard Winant address contemporary racial dynamics—from demographic shifts and the erosion of civil rights to Islamophobia, immigrant rights movements, intersectionality, and the Obama presidency—offering an updated account of race’s central role in U.S. politics and society.
Use Explore to find individual e-books. Additionally, you can navigate to the following databases to browse for e-books:
On UCL Explore, you can look at the results of your search to quickly discover if a book is available in print or/and online: View Online means that the book is available electronically, while Available means that the book is available in print. In some cases a book is available both in print and online.
Consult introductory material or general reference works for a broad overview of your issue or topic, and to identify key concepts, theories and researchers in the field. Introductory material may include:
Find introductory material in Explore by combining a topic keyword with one of the material type descriptors above, e.g. The Routledge Hispanic studies companion to Latin America and the Caribbean (1492-1898).
These are some examples of introductory material available electronically for the Institute of the Americas. The list is not extensive, and you should perform your own searches on Explore to see what else is available in print in UCL Libraries.
UCL Library Services off-site store is a closed access collection which houses important research material not currently in high demand. The material at this site will have 'Store' as its location on Explore. Users can request store material for delivery to the Science Library. Users should complete a Store Request Form in order to request material from this location.
A brief guide to finding and accessing e-books via UCL Explore.
A range of attitudes and ideas are represented across our historical and current library materials, collected since UCL’s foundation in 1826. As a result, some terminology found in Explore may be considered harmful, discriminatory, or offensive. Find out more.
Check out our Explore guide to find out more about how to use Explore for your research.
UCL Library collections have been developed over 200 years. Some material reflects historic and structural inequalities in the university and in society. Today, as we work on ensuring our current collecting policy and practice supports and reflects a fully inclusive range of voices and perspectives, we still, on occasion, acquire material which is required for teaching and research that may be considered harmful or offensive. Find out more on our Inclusive Collections webpages.
ReadingLists @UCL is an online service that gives students easy access to materials on their reading lists wherever they are, and allows academic staff to create and update their own reading lists.
