From geology and biology to cinema and the theatre, this ambitious thematic encyclopedia, unique in scope and style, provides a much needed one-volume account of all aspects of Latin America and the Caribbean. Written by some fifty recognised experts in clear and accessible language for the general reader and copiously illustrated with full colour photographs, it discusses general themes as well as the individual countries in their own right. Ranging from contemporary economic problems, such as the debts of Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, and events of international political importance, such as the revolutions in Cuba and Nicaragua, through surveys of the flora and fauna, and the emergence of first human societies to the traditions of the samba and tango, writers such as Neruda, Borges and Garcia Marquez, and the potent production of the Mexican muralists, the Encyclopedia depicts lands and peoples which have long represented a distant enigma for the outside world but can no longer remain ignored by it.