When we look at Latin America we can interpret what is going on there through these various lenses: we can concentrate on what is cyclical about the region; we can mark out major underlying continuities, and we can also take the more journalistic view. Our prognosis about its future prospects will be coloured by the lens we adopt to examine its past evolution. I therefore note some major continuities, identify some key cycles, and then take a more short term view to interpret what is going on and what we might expect in the coming years. Recognizing the internal diversity of Latin America despites is shared characteristics is a way of avoiding the pitfalls of the single story and to tell, instead, what Chinua Achebe calls a “balance of stories.”