Robert H. Holden

Professor of Latin American History

Old Dominion University


rholden@odu.edu

757 683 3941



Department of History

Batten Art & Letters Building, 8034

Norfolk VA 23529-0091


For his students

All course material is posted on Canvas

Selected publications

Editor, The Oxford Handbook of Central American History (New York: Oxford University Press), June 2022. Online version.

"Interpreting the History of a Region in Crisis." In Holden, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Central American History, pp. 1-23. Online here or readable on Amazon.

"After the Deluge: Central American Historiography at Low Tide." Latin American Research Review 55 (September 2020) 3, pp. 574–585. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25222/larr.1003

“Violence, the State and Revolution in Latin America,” in The Cambridge World History of Violence, v. 4, "1800 to the Present," pp. 490-509, eds. Louise Edwards, Nigel Penn and Jay Winter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.

“Beyond Mere War: Authority and Legitimacy in the Formation of the Latin American States.” In L. B. Kaspersen & Jeppe Strandsbjerg (eds.), Does War Make States? Investigations of Charles Tilly’s Historical Sociology. Cambridge University Press, 2017.

"Borderlands and Public Violence in a Shadow Polity: Costa Ricans, Nicaraguans and the Legacy of the Central American Federation,” in Sebastian Huhn and Hannes Warnecke (eds.), Politics and History of Violence and Crime in Central America. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

Contemporary Latin America: 1970 to the Present, with Rina Villars. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2012.

"La Iglesia y la independencia del Reino de Guatemala," in Josep-Ignasi Saranyana and Juan Bosco Amores Carredano (eds.), Política y religión en la independencia de la América hispana. Madrid: BAC, 2011.

Second edition of Holden & Zolov, Latin America and the United States: A Documentary History. Oxford University Press, 2010.

“De la mujer invisible al feminismo ineludible: Política y antropología en la historiografía de la mujer,” Memoria y Civilización (9) 2006: 109-138.

“What Is Your Anthropology? What Are Your Ethics?” Historically Speaking (bulletin of The Historical Society), 6 (March/April 2005) 4:35 -37.

Armies Without Nations: Public Violence and State Formation in Central America, 1821-1960. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.

“Securing Central America Against Communism: The United States and the Modernization of Surveillance in the Cold War.” Journal of Interamerican Studies & World Affairs 41 (Spring 1999) 1: 1-30.

"Constructing the Limits of State Violence in Central America: Toward a New Research Agenda." Journal of Latin American Studies 28 (May 1996) 2:435-459.

Mexico and the Survey of the Public Lands: The Management of Modernization, 1876-1911. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1994.