Makers of democracy: a transnational history of the middle classes in Colombia: by A. Ricardo López-Pedreros, Durham, Duke University Press, 2019, xvii+261 pp., appendices, notes, index, $104.95 (hardback), ISBN 9781478001775; $27.95 (paperback), ISBN 9781478002857

Makers of democracy: a transnational history of the middle classes in Colombia: by A. Ricardo López-Pedreros, Durham, Duke University Press, 2019, xvii+261 pp., appendices, notes, index, $104.95 (hardback), ISBN 9781478001775; $27.95 (paperback), ISBN 9781478002857 López-Pedreros' most valuable contributions come in later chapters, in which he contests the ubiquitous argument that a passive middle class was successfully co-opted by the FN and Americanized by US-sponsored programs. This provocative book demands that we rethink not only researchers' portrayal of the middle classes in Latin America but also that we question the conflation of middle-class societies and democracy globally. [Extracted from the article]