The images of revolution in Latin America have long been part of the metropolitan left imagination. Yet there is not much input from the complex and grounded Latin American debates rethinking the left into the global discourse. I will develop an argument/analysis addressing that gap in three phases. First in Theory I will seek to place the Latin American debates from a postcolonial perspective focusing on the reception of key debates in the global North. I then move on to the ‘left decade’ itself in Practice laying out some of the basic parameters, its complexity and contradictions. Post 2000, Latin America became a laboratory of left experimentalism that deserves closer attention. Finally, in Futures I cast a cold eye on alternative scenarios for the left with a view to going beyond the simplifications current in Northern left coverage. Any global rethinking on ‘augmenting the left’ would benefit from the various views from (not just on) Latin America. There is much to learn from debates which might help rethink a left strategy that is fit for purpose in the 21st century, learning from the mistakes of the past and from the now seemingly ebbing left decade or ‘pink tide’ in Latin America.
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