More than anywhere else in the world, Latin American capitals were influenced by the importation of European urban culture and urbanism. While the urban and planning history of some of these cities has been studied, particularly in Spanish, this is the first comprehensive work in English to describe the social and morphological evolution of the capital cities of Latin America, as the most conspicuous stages of the Europeanism during the post-colonial period. The transfer of urban ideas through European models and representatives is explored, showing how this importation lead to the development of urbanism as a discipline in the countries concerned. In his introductory chapters Arturo Almandoz provides a historical survey of Latin American urban development and reviews the period most influenced by European ideas -from mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, after which American influence led to a very different, technically-based approach to planning. There follows a series of case studies devoted to individual cities, each extensively illustrated and written by authorities on the city concerned. The cities are Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo, Santiago de Chile; Mexico City, Lima; Havana, Caracas, San José.