There is little dispute, however, that Spanish American caudillos have been more numerous and more pervasive than such leaders in other regions. Further, while the word caudillo and caudillismo are variants of dictator and dictatorship , they have a special resonance that suggests the unique political environment of Spanish America. It can be argued that a caudillo is able to achieve legitimacy within the established value system, whereas a dictator depends primarily on force to sustain power and is, therefore, illegitimate.
Definition often depends upon whether one favors or opposes a particular authoritarian leader.
In this major revision of the Borzoi Book Dictatorship in Spanish America , editor Hugh Hamill has presented conflicting interpretations of caudillismo in twenty-seven essays written by an international group of historians, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, journalists, and caudillos themselves. The theoretical arguments in Hamill's introduction and the first five chapters are followed by twenty-two chronologically arranged essays on individual caudillos. The selections represent revisionists, apologists, enemies, and even a victim of caudillos. The reader emerges with a heightened awareness of the almost infinite varieties of caudillismo and of the complex culture in which this controversial Spanish American phenomenon is to be found. Photographs of the caudillos accompany the text.