The Idea of Latin America is a geo-political manifesto which insists on the need to leave behind an idea which belonged to the nation-building mentality of nineteenth-century Europe.

• Charts the history of the concept of Latin America from its emergence in Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century through various permutations to the present day.
• Asks what is at stake in the survival of an idea which subdivides the Americas.
• Reinstates the indigenous peoples and migrations excluded by the image of a homogenous Latin America with defined borders.
• Insists on the pressing need to leave behind an idea which belonged to the nation-building mentality of nineteenth-century Europe.