That's a pretty broad request. Are you looking more for something political, economic, cultural? Popular history or something a bit more academic?

For example, if you want a serious author to give you a sort of survey comparative history of Latin America, I'd use Tulio Halperin's Contemporary History of Latin America, which starts with independence in the 1820s and goes up to the 1970s, or thereabouts.

For a much more literary take, which you should read critically, check out Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy. It is a very literary work of non-fiction, but it isn't by a historian and you should only use it with care to introduce you to the world of Latin America, and with healthy helpings of serious historians to straighten out any political and economic over simplifications Galeano comits.

Regarding major themes, the main theme of the last 200 years of Latin American history could probably be described as attempts at the construction of sovereign nation states. While Latin American governments chose many varied strategies to turn their local populations into citizens with nationalist sentiments (often times while attempting to continue the exploitation of a large sector of the population), they also tried to establish economic prosperity only to realize that dependence on one country (Spain) had only given way to dependence on others (Great Britain, the US, and at least one case the USSR). Then again, this is admittedly a very left leaning analysis of the central themes of the period, so I would imagine that historians with other perspectives may focus on other issues.