Studies of Afro-Latin Americans cluster in Brazil and Cuba, where the largest populations have lived, and when they have been studied in other countries, their contributions have been assumed to be limited to colonial or early national periods. Here historians, anthropologists, and other scholars look at Afro-Mexicans from their arrival as slaves to the present. Among the topics are slave rebellion and liberty in colonial Mexico, Black aliens ad Black natives in New Spain's indigenous communities, love magic in 17th-century Afro-Mexico and Afro-Yucatan, an anthropologist reflects on her fieldwork, the saga of the Afro-Mexican Thornton family, and the need to recognize Afro-Mexicans as an ethnic group. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)