My only real exposure to Latin American history was a 3-week 10,000-ft overview back in high school, over a decade ago. Recently I've been watching Chilean news channels and tv shows with a friend, and I'm becoming very curious about the history of the country. Before I start binge-ordering every book I can find with "Chile" in the title, I thought I'd see whether AskHistorians has any solid recommendations for someone with no prior knowledge of the subject area. English or Spanish books are fine. Thanks!
In my mind, one of the definitive works in English is A history of Chile, 1808–2002 by William F. Sater and Simon Collier (Cambridge University Press). In fact, I'd usually say that anything by William F. Sater is pretty solid.
Although a little bit outdated (and according to some, biased) I heavily reccomend reading the Historia de Chile by Encina and Castedo. Very complete about politics and way of life from the Procolombine era untill 1892