The last of a three-volume history of the Americas composed entirely of short vignettes, this one covers the 20th Century, chiefly the many U.S. incursions into Latin America, anecdotes from the lives of figures like Sandino, Pancho Villa, Che Guevara, Frida Kahlo, and Eva Peron, and meditations on the way events like Auschwitz and Hiroshima have resonated throughout the new world. Lyrical, emminently readable and easy to skim for geographic areas of particular interest.  (CAM66, $15.95)