Peter H. Smith is a scholar on United States and Latin American relations, and the Simon Bolivar Professor of Latin American Studies

Latin American Studies

Latin American studies is an academic discipline dealing with the study of Latin America and Latin Americans.-Definition:Latin American studies critically examines the history, culture, politics, and experiences of Latin Americans in Latin America and often also elsewhere .Latin American studies...

 at University of California in San Diego.

He has been president of the Latin American Studies Association

Latin American Studies Association

The Latin American Studies Association is the largest association for scholars of Latin American studies. Founded in 1966, it has over 6,000 members, forty-five percent of whom reside outside the United States, LASA brings together experts on Latin America from all disciplines and diverse...

(1989-). He has also been director of the Center for Iberian and Latin American Studies (1989–2001) and director of Latin American Studies (1994–2001) at UCSD.

Publications

Some of his publications include:

• Politics and Beef in Argentina: Patterns of Conflict and Change (1969)
• Argentina and the Failure of Democracy: Conflict among Political Elites, 1904-1955 (1974)
• Labyrinths of Power: Political Recruitment in Twentieth-Century Mexico (1979)
• Talons of the Eagle: Dynamics of U.S.-Latin American Relations (1996; 2nd edition, 2000)
• Democracy in Latin America: Political Change in Comparative Perspective (2005)
• Modern Latin America, co-authored (1984), now in its sixth edition (2005)