Three well-known attempts to build a typology of peasant movements in Latin America in the twentieth century are Aníbal Quijano, ‘Contemporary peasant movements’, in Seymour Lipset and Aldo Solari (eds.), Elites in Latin America (New York, 1967); Henry A. Landsberger, ‘The role of peasant movements and revolts in development’, in H. A. Landsberger (ed.), Latin American Peasant Movements (Ithaca, N.Y., and London, 1969), and Gerrit Huizer, El potencial revolucionario del campesinado (Mexico, D.F., 1973).

Other useful collections of articles on rural unrest are Rodolfo Stavenhagen (ed.), Agrarian Problems and Peasant Movements in Latin America (New York, 1970); Ernest Feder (ed.), La lucha de clases en el campo: Análisis estructural de la economía latinoamericana (Mexico, D.F., 1975), and Henri Favre (ed.), ‘Les mouvements indiens paysans aux XVIIIe, XIXe et XXe siècles’, Actes du XLIIe Congrès International des Américanistes (Paris, 1976). But the most complete and up-to-date collective work, including chapters on every Latin American country, is Pablo González Casanova (ed.), Historia política de los campesinos latinoamericanos, 4 vols. (Mexico, D.F., 1984–85). An illuminating synthesis is Henri Favre, ‘L’Etat et la paysannerie en Mésoamérique et dans les Andes’, Etudes Rurales, 81–2 (1981), 25–55. In a more abstract vein, a model for the changing nature of the rural social order and the increasing diversification of rural actors is provided by Eric R. Wolf, ‘Fases de la protesta rural en América Latina’, in Feder (ed.), La lucha de clases en el campo.

On the significance of caudillos and caciques, see the pioneering essays by Eric R. Wolf, ‘Aspects of group relations in a complex society: Mexico’, American Anthropologist, 58 (1956), 1065–78, and François Chevalier, ‘ “Caudillos” et “caciques” en Amérique: Contribution a l’etude des liens personnels’, Mélanges offerts a Marcel Bataillon par les hispanistes français, Bulletin Hispanique, 51 (1962).