The one source that sets reference collections on Latin American studies apart from all other geographic areas of the world… . The Handbook has provided scholars interested in Latin America with a bibliographical source of a quality unavailable to scholars in most other branches of area studies. -Latin American Research Review

Beginning with Number 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the Hispanic Division of the Library of Congress and annotated by a corps of more than 140 specialists in various disciplines, the Handbook alternates from year to year between social sciences and humanities.

The Handbook annotates works on Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and the Guianas, Spanish South America, and Brazil, as well as materials covering Latin America as a whole. Most of the subsections are preceded by introductory essays that serve as biannual evaluations of the literature and research under way in specialized areas.