Erick D. Langer is professor of history at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service. He teaches courses on Latin American History. He is the author, co-author, and editor of eight books and author or co-author of more than 50 articles in journals and book chapters. Dr. Langer is the U.S. History Representative of the Pan American Institute of Geography and History. He is presently working on three projects: a history of frontiers in the Chaco region of South America, a book of the economic development of the south-central Andes, and the diary of Francis Burdett O'Connor, the independence hero who fought with Bolivar and became one of the largest landlords in Spanish America during the 19th century.