Latin American & Caribbean Studies

On the menu to the left you will find links to a variety of resources to aid research in Latin American and Caribbean Studies. This is a selected list emphasizing electronic materials devoted entirely to or containing  substantial content on Latin American and Caribbean topics. They represent only a portion of our collection.

Current Duke holdings on Latin America and the Caribbean total approximately 300,000 volumes, 3,700 serials, 400 currently received journals, and 10 newspapers. Duke subscribes to six databases focused exclusively on Latin America and the Caribbean. These include strong, complementary collections in social sciences and literature which emphasize political and institutional history, labor history, political economy, political humor, sociology, women's studies, demography, anthropology and archeology, and international and inter-American relations. In literature there is a broad representation of the belles-lettres of all the Latin American countries. Other significant collections include national and international statistics, philosophy, folklore, cultural studies, maps, film, sustainable development, and rare books and manuscripts.

Special Collections related to Latin America and the Caribbean include but are not limited to, the Canovas del Castillo Collection, purchased from the National Library of Madrid, containing rare books from the 16th century onwards. The Pérez de Velasco Collection is detailed in the Catálogo de la Bilibioteca, Propiedad del Dr. Francisco Pérez de Velasco. Lima: Librería e Imprenta Gil, 1918. Among these titles are Spanish, Portuguese, and Latin American rare books, including travel books by 18th and 19th- century European travelers to Peru and Ecuador. Laws, statutes, legal materials, including bound volumes and pamphlets detailing Spanish laws, many of which pertained to Spain’s colonies, dating from 1623-1833.  For more information see http://library.duke.edu/specialcollections/research/guides/latinamerica/index.html