This bibliography presents a list of titles that help the reader to understand the Latin American history from 1500 to the present day. The political system of the First Republic, which entered its final phase with the presidential succession crisis of 1929-1930, was based on the Constitution of 1891, promulgated while Brazil was still under military rule following the overthrow of Emperor Dom Pedro II in November 1889. Throughout the period of the First Republic 65-70 percent of economically active Brazilians were employed in agriculture, cattle-raising and rural industries and lived in small towns and in the countryside. Elections for governor, state assembly and both houses of Congress were for the most part controlled in each state of the federation by a single statewide Republican party. The democratisation of Brazil in 1945-1946 was part of a Latin America, wide, indeed worldwide, wave of democratisation at the end of the Second World War.