Articles on Americas

Displaying all articles

Brazilian President Lula da Silva greets US President Donald Trump upon his arrival at the White House: the trip also serves a second, equally important function for Lula, as each item on the bilateral agenda maps directly onto a domestic electoral fault line. Ricardo Stuckert/PR

Trump and Lula at the White House: a relationship built on pragmatism and a broader regional calculus

Bilateral meeting between both presidents sent a clear signal to Lula’s domestic audience: the relationship with Washington is not broken, and it does not require a Bolsonaro to fix it.
A tequila factory in Jalisco, Mexico, the hub of the world’s tequila production. Gabriel Trujillo/Picture Alliance via Getty Images

Filipino sailors dock in Mexico … and help invent tequila?

Crew aboard Spanish trading ships departing from Manila may have introduced techniques for distilling coconut sap – helping to shape what would become Mexico’s national spirit.
A statue of Christopher Columbus, toppled by protesters, is loaded onto a truck on the grounds of the state capitol on June 10, 2020, in St Paul, Minn. Stephen Maturen/Getty Images

Politics based on grievance has a long and violent history in America

President Trump’s politics of resentment recall the US colonial era, when grievances fueled rage and violence.
Mass coral bleaching in 2014 left the Coral Reef Monitoring Program monitoring site at Cheeca Rocks off the Florida Keys a blanket of white. NOAA

Corals are starting to bleach as global ocean temperatures hit record highs

Water temperatures in the 90s off Florida in July are alarming, a NOAA coral scientist writes. Scientists in several North American countries have already spotted coral bleaching off their coasts.
Ceremonial cape designs by Mexica (Aztec) artists who created the Codex Magliabechiano in the mid-1500s. Tonatiu (left) represents the sun deity and ‘ataduras’ (right) depicts bindings. The Book of the Life of Ancient Mexicans, Z. Nuttall (1903)

Coronavirus: Europeans introduced devastating novel diseases to the Indigenous Americas – here’s what the survivors learned

When colonisers invaded the Americas, they brought with them waves of new diseases. This legacy continues to impact Indigenous communities.

Top contributors

More