"Chicano writers from El Paso are the most progressive, open-minded, far-reaching, and inclusive writers of them all."

Octavio Romano

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Tommy Stands Alone - Banned Book #4 and New Books in September - South American Topics



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Banned Chicana Book # 4: 
Tommy Stands Alone
YA novel of sexual confusion too much for some 

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Tommy Stands Alone (Arte Publico Press), Gloria Velasquez' 1995 novel for ages 6-9? has gained disdain of book banners in its 15-year existence.

Book Description:

Grade 6-9?Tommy, a Chicano teen, is uncomfortable with the attention girls shower on him and wants to avoid his friends. When Rudy and Tyrone find a note written to him from David the joto (queer), Tommy can't take it anymore. He buys a bottle of vodka, steals some pills from his family's medicine cabinet, and attempts to kill himself. Maya, his best friend, calls on Ms. Martinez, a counselor, to guide him through this crisis.

Although Tommy needs assistance, he is reluctant to come to terms with the fact that he is gay. Maya finally confronts him and forces him to deal with the situation. Once he does, the knowledge that there is hope comes very slowly at first, for he needs to open up to his family and, more importantly, to himself. Velasquez writes with clarity about the pain and suffering that the characters experience. But the message of getting help is overly stressed throughout?readers will feel deluged with advice. And while the advice is sound, the story is just too heavy-handed for YAs to take seriously.?
                                    -Jana R. Fine, Clearwater Public Library System, FL
                                        Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc. 

Nevertheless, in Velasquez native state, Colorado, in Longmont where the school district banned the book. Part of Velasquez' Roosevelt High School Series which focuses on a group of multicultural students.

It rare that Tommy Stands Alone is left off of lists by conservative groups, list for parents to check if these book are available in their school districts so they can be removed (see this list by the Minnesota Family Council). Some of these group recommend people fight school district rules that would prevent violence against gays (see Mission America).

"Parents should already be discussing issues on race, the Holocaust; students need to be aware of what's going on," Velasquez said in an interview with the Mustang Daily of Cal Poly University.

Recently Velasquez,released another children's bilingual cd with baby y itunes and as shes ways "tiene una canción política para nuestros chavalitos "Atzi en Atzlán" that mentions Cesar y Dolores (you can hear it on her website: gloriavelasquez.com.




Gloria Velasquez most recent addition to the Roosevelt High School Series is Rudy's Memory Walk.


NEW BOOKS IN SEPTEMBER 2010
SOUTH AMERICAN and LATIN AMERICAN TOPICS

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The Cambridge Companion to Gabriel Garciá Márquez
(Cambridge Companions to Literature) [Paperback]
Cambridge University Press; 1 edition (August 31, 2010) ISBN-10: 0521687101
Philip Swanson (Editor)

Gabriel García Márquez is Latin America's most internationally famous and successful author, and a winner of the Nobel Prize. His oeuvre of great modern novels includes One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera.

His name has become closely associated with Magical Realism, a phenomenon that has been immensely influential in world literature. This Companion includes new and probing readings of all of García Márquez's works, by leading international specialists. His life in Colombia, the context of Latin American history and culture, key themes in his works and their critical reception are explored in detail.

Written for students and readers of García Márquez, the Companion is accessible for non-Spanish speakers and features a chronology and a guide to further reading. This insightful and lively book will provide an invaluable framework for the further study and enjoyment of this major figure in world literature.


Hardcover, Cambridge University Press; 1 edition September 30, 2010ISBN-10: 052119587X
ISBN-13: 978-0521195874
Allan Brewer-Carías

This book examines the process of dismantling the democratic institutions and protections in Venezuela under the Hugo Chávez regime. The actions of the Chávez government have influenced similar processes and undemocratic maneuverings in Ecuador, Bolivia, and Honduras. Since the election of Hugo Chávez as president of Venezuela in 1998, a sinister form of nationalistic authoritarianism has arisen at the expense of long-established democratic standards.

During the past decade, the 1999 Venezuelan Constitution has been systematically attacked by all branches of the Chávez government, particularly by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice, which has legitimized the Chávez-ordered constitutional violations.

The Chávez regime has purposely defrauded the Constitution and severely restricted representative government, all in the name of a supposedly participatory democracy controlled by a popularly supported central government. This volume illustrates how an authoritarian, nondemocratic government has been established in Venezuela - a government lacking all the essential elements of a true democracy as defined by the 2001 Inter-American Democratic Charter.


(Pitt Latin American Studies) Hardcover
University of Pittsburgh Press; 1 edition
September 28, 2010
ISBN-10: 0822943999
Robert L. Smale

On June 4, 1923, the Bolivian military turned a machine gun on striking miners in the northern Potosí town of Uncía.  The incident is remembered as Bolivia’s first massacre of industrial workers.  The violence in Uncía highlights a formative period in the development of a working class who would eventually challenge the oligarchic control of the nation.

Robert L. Smale begins his study as Bolivia’s mining industry transitioned from silver to tin; specifically focusing on the region of Oruro and northern Potosí. The miners were part of a heterogeneous urban class alongside artisans, small merchants, and other laborers.

Artisan mutual aid societies provided miners their first organizational models and the guidance to emancipate themselves from the mine owners’ political tutelage.  During the 1910s both the Workers’ Labor Federation and the Socialist Party appeared in Oruro to spur more aggressive political action. In 1920 miners won a comprehensive contract that exceeded labor legislation debated in Congress in the years that followed.  Relations between the working class and the government deteriorated soon after, leading to the 1923 massacre in Uncía. Smale ends his study with the onset of the Great Depression and premonitions of war with Paraguay—twin cataclysms that would discredit the old oligarchic order and open new horizons to the labor movement.

This period’s developments marked the entry of workers and other marginalized groups into Bolivian politics and the acquisition of new freedoms and basic rights.  These events prefigure the rise of Evo Morales — a union activist born in Oruro — in the early twenty-first century. 


(Spanish Edition) Paperback
Aguilar September 23, 2010
ISBN-10: 1616052430
Ingrid Betancourt

Ingrid Betancourt tells the story of her captivity in the Colombian jungle, sharing powerful teachings of resilience, resistance, and faith.

Spanish Description: Habia perdido toda mi libertad y, con ella, todo cuanto me importaba; alejada a la fuerza de mis hijos, de mi madre, de mi vida y de mis suenos; con el cuello encadenado a un arbol... en condiciones de la mas infame humillacion, conservaba, no obstante, la mas preciosa de las libertades, que nadie podra arrebatarme jamas: la de decidir quien queria ser.

En 2002, Ingrid Betancourt, candidata presidencial de Colombia, fue secuestrada por la guerrilla de las FARC, cuando se dirigia a San Vicente del Caguan, dos dias despues de que en esta zona se finalizara la concesion otorgada por el presidente, en lo que se conocio como la zona de distension .

Durante seis anos y medio Ingrid Betancourt soporto todos los horrores de la selva: el encierro, las eternas marchas, la enfermedad, el hambre, la soledad, la humillacion, los enfrentamientos, el dolor, el olvido... todo esto conservando siempre una integridad sin limites, con una unica obsesion: la libertad.

En su libro relata, en detalle, sus dias en la selva: los complejos hilos de las relaciones personales entre los distintos prisioneros, la lucha por conseguir una racion de comida o la compania de un diccionario, los tan anhelados minutos de comunicacion con su madre y sus hijos a traves de un programa radial, sus intentos de fuga, la muerte de su padre.

Asi mismo da su vision acerca de todo aquello que rodeo su cautiverio: el dia de su secuestro, las relaciones con los comandantes de las FARC, la posicion de Francia y su lucha por conseguir su liberacion, las negociaciones y los esfuerzos del gobierno y las autoridades colombianas. De una forma reflexiva y profunda Betancourt lleva de la mano al lector no solo a vivir en carne propia la humedad, la oscuridad y el olor de la selva, sino a sentir dia tras dia el torrente de sentimientos y emociones encontradas que alli suceden.

No hay silencio que no termine es un trasegar por la miseria y la grandeza humana: con sus encuentros y contradicciones, sus miedos y fragilidades, sus pequenos placeres y alegrias simples, sus decepciones y devastaciones, su esperanza e inspiracion. El 2 de julio de 2008, en lo que se denomino como la Operación Jaque, el Ejercito colombiano la rescato en un impresionante operativo que le dio la vuelta al mundo, y que regreso a la libertad a Ingrid Betancourt, junto a los tres contratistas norteamericanos, siete miembros del Ejercito nacional y tres de la Policia.



Pennsylvania State Univ Pr September 16, 2010
ISBN-10: 0271037075
Paul Dosh (Author), James Lerager (Illustrator)

In the latter half of the twentieth century, millions of impoverished people all over Latin America participated in illegal seizures of urban land. As many cities became saturated with squatter settlements by the 1980s, it was expected that such invasions would wane. But the increased economic vulnerability and expansion of informal labor activity brought about by neoliberal government policies spurred yet more invasions.

Their goals remained the same: reliable electricity, potable water, sewer drainage, and legal title to illegally acquired land. But changes in the economic and political context required different means for achieving these goals.

Social safety nets were weakened, organized labor lost power, and some urban service monopolies were privatize--and the introduction of democratic municipal elections offered new avenues to secure these much-needed services. In this careful study of ten neighborhoods in Quito, Ecuador, and Lima, Peru, Paul Dosh examines these new patterns to cast light on the reasons why some neighborhood groups succeed and survive while others do not.



Rutgers University Press August 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0813548004 Paperback
Serena Cosgrov

Leadership from the Margins describes and analyzes the unique leadership styles and challenges facing the women leaders of civil society organizations (CSOs) in Argentina, Chile, and El Salvador. Based on ethnographic research, Serena Cosgrove's analysis offers a nuanced account of the distinct struggles facing women, and how differences of class, political ideology, and ethnicity have informed their outlook and organizing strategies. Using a gendered lens, she reveals the power and potential of women's leadership to impact the direction of local, regional, and global development agendas.
Hardcover University of New Mexico Press September 16, 2010
ISBN-10: 0826347037

One of the first artists to visit the Mayan ruins at Palenque after Mexican independence, Jean-Frederic Waldeck has long been dismissed as unreliable, his drawings of pre-Columbian art marred by his excessive interest in European styles of beauty. With this fresh look at Waldeck's entire output, including his desire to exhibit at Paris salons, his reconstructions of Mayan and Aztec subjects can be understood as art rather than illustration.

Pasztory sees him as a unique Neoclassicist who has never been fully appreciated. In addition to illustrating Maya antiquities in the days before photography, Waldeck painted imaginary reconstructions of pre-Columbian life and rituals and scenes of everyday life in nineteenth-century Mexico. Most his contemporaries looking for exotic subject matter went east and are now referred to as Orientalists.

Waldeck went west and found the exotic in the New World, but as Esther Pasztory suggests, he is an Orientalist in spirit. Waldeck's work was not considered interesting or important in its day, but twenty-first century viewers can appreciate his sensibility, which combines the modern domestic with the ancient mythic and features a theatrical version of Neoclassicism that looks forward to a Hollywood that would not exist until decades after the artist's death in 1875 at the age of 109. 

Politics and Economics of Latin America
Hardcover, Nova Science Pub Inc September 30, 2010
ISBN-10: 1608761894
Walter N. Bakker (Editor)

Latin America comprises a diverse group of countries with extremely varied economies and political dynamics. Some are heavy in poverty and others are booming with petrodollars. They speak Spanish, Portuguese, and French.

This book brings together analysis detailing crucial issues such as: the economic and social indicators of Latin America and the Caribbean; current heads of government and elections in Latin America and the Caribbean; Latin American terrorism issues; El Salvador's political, economic and social conditions and U.S. relations; Cuba and issues for the 111th Congress and U.S. restrictions on travel and remittances; and, Panama's political and economic conditions and U.S. relations. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

Addison Wesley Longman September 28, 2010
ISBN-10: 0132085097 Paperback
Erin O'Connor

Documenting Latin America focuses on the central themes of race, gender, and politics. These themes are especially important for understanding and evaluating the history of Latin America, where identities were forged out of the conflicts, negotiations, and intermixing of peoples from Europe, Africa, and the Americas.

Documentary sources provide readers with the tools to develop a broad understanding of the course of Latin American social, cultural, and political history. Drawing upon labor, biographical, economic, and military histories, the book offers a unique blend of perspectives of history from both above and below, from under-studied as well as often-studied regions, and from a combination of archival and classic sources that will allow readers to engage in a meaningful way with the Latin American past.


Paperback, Hackett Publishing Co. September 24, 2010
ISBN-10: 087220863X
John Chasteen (Author, Editor), Sarah C. Chambers (Editor)

Through a variety of primary sources - including speeches, poems, letters, and book excerpts - this collection illustrates the origins, progress, and unfulfilled republican promise of the Latin American Wars for Independence (1780-1850). A general Introduction offers a history of the period; head notes introduce each selection and provide historical and political context. Maps and illustrations are included, as are a chronology of the Wars for Independence, suggestions for further reading, and a thorough index.

Hardcover, University of New Mexico Press
September 16, 2010 ISBN-10: 0826344895
Friedrich E. Schuler

The conflicts that culminated in the First and Second World Wars had their origins in the rise of imperial powers in North America, Europe, and Asia in the late nineteenth century and the imperialist quests for the resources of colonies and former colonies. American expansionists, encouraged by a growing U.S. Navy, nurtured U.S. policies with illusions of easy access to South America.

Policy makers in the fledgling empires of Germany, Japan, Spain, and Italy relied on clandestine means to rival U.S. ambitions. In this original and thoroughly researched book, based on new sources from previously unused collections in Germany and Spain, Friedrich E. Schuler details their attempts to suborn ethnic groups within Latin America but also the United States to establish ethnic 'beachheads' that would serve to undermine U.S. interests.

These deeply disturbing lessons became central historical reference points for U.S. policy makers during World War II. Not surprisingly, though rarely covered in Latin American historiography, Latin American nations, but also Spain, developed their own plans to exploit these imperialist rivalries after World War I. The resulting intrigue and subterfuge revealed in this revisionist study adds a fascinating new dimension to our understanding of transpacific and transatlantic politics during this critical period of world history.



(National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report) Hardcover
University Of Chicago Press September 15, 2010
ISBN-10: 0226153746
Rafael Di Tella (Editor), Sebastian Edwards (Editor), Ernesto Schargrodsky (Editor)

Crime rates in Latin America are among the highest in the world, and in several countries they have steadily risen over the past two decades, making crime the primary concern of many citizens. Despite this situation, there has been a lack of systematic effort to study crime in the region or the effectiveness of policies designed to tackle it. This book contributes to the current debate on causes and solutions by applying lessons learned from recent developments in the economics of crime.

The Economics of Crime addresses a variety of topics, including the impact of mandatory arrest laws, education in prisons, and the relationship between poverty and crime. The book also presents research from outside Latin America, illustrating the broad range of approaches that have been fruitful in studying crime in developed nations. The Economics of Crime will be vital for researchers, policy makers, and students of both crime and of Latin American economic policy.



(Vintage) [Paperback]
Vintage August 10, 2010
ISBN-10: 0307456617
Carolina De Robertis (Author)

From the verdant hills of Rio de Janeiro to Evita Perón’s glittering Buenos Aires, from the haven of a corner butcher shop to the halls of the United States Embassy in Montevideo, this gripping novel — at once expansive and lush with detail — examines the intertwined fates of a continent and a family in upheaval. The Invisible Mountain is a deeply intimate exploration of the search for love and authenticity in the lives of three women, and a penetrating portrait of the small, tenacious nation of Uruguay, shaken by the gales of the twentieth century.

On the first day of the year 1900, a small town deep in the Uruguayan countryside gathers to witness a miracle — the mysterious reappearance of a lost infant, Pajarita — and unravel its portents for the century. Later, as a young woman in the capital city — Montevideo, brimming with growth and promise — Pajarita begins a lineage of fiercely independent women with her enamored husband, Ignazio, a young immigrant from Italy and the inheritor of both a talent for boat making and a latent, more sinister family trait.

Their daughter, Eva, a fragile yet ferociously stubborn beauty intent on becoming a poet, overcomes an early, shattering betrayal to embark on a most unconventional path toward personal and artistic fulfillment. And Eva’s daughter, Salomé, awakening to both her sensuality and political convictions amid the violent turmoil of the late 1960s, finds herself dangerously attracted to a cadre of urban guerrilla rebels, despite the terrible consequences of such principled fearlessness.

Provocative, heartbreaking and ultimately life-affirming, The Invisible Mountain is a poignant celebration of the potency of familial love, the will to survive in the most hopeless of circumstances, and, above all, the fierce, fortifying connection between mother and daughter.


Contemporary Uruguayan Poetry: A Bilingual Anthology 
[Hardcover]
Bucknell University Press (August 31, 2010) ISBN-10: 0838757790
Ronald Haladyna (Editor)

This volume is intended as an introduction of contemporary poetry by notable Uruguayan poets to the English-reading world, but also to readers of Spanish unfamiliar with them. The introduction provides a brief background on Uruguay for readers unfamiliar with the country. Each poet is represented by an ample and varied selection of poems originally published in Spanish, here with English translations on facing pages. The final chapter is devoted to a biographical sketch of each poet and an extensive bibliography of primary and secondary sources.

A numbers of these poets have had poems translated into other languages and included in national and international anthologies, and have received international recognition for their work, but they are still virtually unknown in English-speaking countries.

Although some of Spanish America's most celebrated narrative writers of the past quarter century have garnered public, academic, and critical attention abroad, their poets have not. Part of this is due to a lack of orientation, a need to identify which poets of the hundreds currently writing are noteworthy.

The editor of this anthology addresses this literary omission by identifying seventeen Uruguayans deserving of recognition: Jorge Arbeleche, Nancy Bacelo, Washington Benavides, Mario Benedetti, Amanda Berenguer, Luis Bravo, Selva Casal, Rafael Courtoisie, Marosa Di Giorgio, Enrique Fierro, Alfredo Fressia, Saúl Ibargoyen, Circe Maia, Jorge Meretta, Eduardo Milán, Alvaro Miranda, and Salvador Puig.



(Spanish Edition) [Paperback]
ASP-VUB Press (August 1, 2010)
ISBN-10: 9054875623
Rita De Maeseneer (Editor), Ingeborg Jongbloet (Editor), Lieve Vangehuchten (Editor), An Van Hecke (Editor), Jasper Vervaeke (Editor)

Authoritative and comprehensive, this broad-spectrum analysis contains numerous articles and studies — including three in Dutch — by international experts in the field of Latin American linguistics and literature. An homage to Robert Verdonk, a pioneer in Hispanic Studies in Belgium, precedes a thorough exploration of linguistic issues, from cognitive linguistics to lexicology, which is in turn followed by studies on renowned authors such as Mario Vargas Llosa and Miguel de Unamuno. The final section is dedicated exclusively to Mexico: its literature, linguistic complexity, and culture.

Autorizado y comprensivo, este análisis de amplio espectro contiene numerosos artículos y estudios—incluyendo tres en holandés—por expertos internacionales en el área de lingüística y literatura latinoamericana.

Un homenaje a Robert Verdonk, un pionero en el campo del hispanismo en Bélgica, precede una exploración minuciosa de temas lingüísticos, desde la lingüística cognitiva hasta la lexicología, la cual está seguida en su turno por estudios sobre autores tan destacados como Mario Vargas Llosa y Miguel de Unamuno. La sección final está dedicada exclusivamente a México: su literatura, complejidad lingüística y cultura.
University of Antwerp.
Allies at Odds: The Andean Church and its Indigenous Agents, 1583-1671
Paperback - University of New Mexico Press August 16, 2010ISBN-10: 0826348319
John Charles

Alternately viewed as servants of evangelization or the plotters of its demise, indios ladinos, native Andeans who mediated contact between the Catholic authorities and indigenous communities, are often omitted from histories of the Spanish spiritual conquest in the New World. Overshadowed by the more powerful European clergy, the experiences of these native assistants--the duties they performed, the historical mechanisms by which they learned Spanish law and writing, their juridical altercations with royal and church authority, and the consequences of native litigation for evangelization as a whole--provide a unique vantage point from which to observe the everyday workings of Spanish colonialism.

Focusing on the highland parishes of the Lima archdiocese, John Charles explores the vital, often conflictive role indigenous agents played in the creation of Andean Christian society. Torn between their obligation to enforce colonial laws and their customary obligation to protect native communities from the colonizers abuses, indios ladinos used the Spanish language to complicate the Church s efforts to evangelize on its own terms.

Utilizing a vast body of literary activity, Allies at Odds provides perspective on the Spanish cultural values that shaped the literary activity of native Andeans and that native Andeans had a part in shaping. 




Latin America Facing China: South-south Relations Beyond the Washington Concensus 
(Cedla) Hardcover, Berghahn Books (August 15, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1845457390
Alex E. Fernandez Jilberto (Editor), Barbara Hogenboom (Editor)

The last quarter of the twentieth century was a period of economic crises, increasing indebtedness as well as financial instability for Latin America and most other developing countries; in contrast, China showed amazingly high growth rates during this time and has since become the third largest economy in the world.

Politically, China presents itself more prominently on the international stage, stressing its position as a developing country and seeking new alliances, including South-South alliances. Based on several case studies, this volume assesses how China's rise-one of the most important recent changes in the global economy-is affecting Latin America's national politics, political economy, and regional and international relations.

Several Latin American countries benefit from China's economic growth by means of commodity exports, rising prices, and Chinese investment. Furthermore, China's new role in international politics has been helpful to many leftist governments' efforts in Latin America to end the Washington Consensus. The contributors to this thought-provoking volume examine these and the other causes, effects, and prospects of Latin America's experiences with China's global expansion from a South-South perspective.


Hardcover, Knopf August 10, 2010BN-10: 0307271153
Victoria Bruce (Author), Karin Hayes (Author), Jorge Enrique Botero (Author)

A blistering journalistic exposé: an account of government negligence, corporate malfeasance, familial struggle, drugs, politics, murder, and a daring rescue operation in the Colombian jungle.

On July 2, 2008, when three American private contractors and Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt were rescued after being held for more than five years by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the world was captivated by their personal narratives. But between the headlines a major story was lost: Who exactly are the FARC? How had a drug-funded revolutionary army managed to hold so many hostages for so long? Had our costly War on Drugs failed completely?

Hostage Nation answers these questions by exploring the complex and corrupt political and socioeconomic situations that enabled the FARC to gain unprecedented strength, influence, and impunity. It takes us behind the news stories to profile a young revolutionary in the making, an elite Colombian banker-turned-guerrilla and the hard-driven American federal prosecutor determined to convict him on American soil, and a former FBI boss who worked tirelessly to end the hostage crisis while the U.S. government disregarded his most important tool — negotiation.

With unprecedented access to the FARC’s hidden camps, exceptional research, and lucid and keen insight, the authors have produced a revelatory work of current history.


Latin America: Its Problems and Its Promise: A Multidisciplinary Approach 
[Paperback]Westview Press; Fifth Edition edition August 3, 2010 ISBN-10: 081334400X
Jan Knippers Black (Editor)

Now in a fifth edition, Latin America has been updated to reflect the region’s growing optimism as economies stabilize, trade diversifies, and political systems become more participatory. This multidisciplinary survey of Latin American history, politics, and society features invited contributions from authorities in a variety of fields.

New sections address current events including deforestation in Costa Rica and Brazil, emerging social movements, Ecuador’s new constitution, and Obama’s stated objectives to repair U.S. relations with the region. In addition, key topics — such as women and Latin American politics, socialist governments and anti-American sentiment, Argentina’s deteriorating economy, and Colombia’s struggle with military and narcotics issues — receive expanded and revitalized treatment. Other updated material covers outcomes of recent elections in Bolivia, Brazil, and Nicaragua, among others. Through a hybrid thematic and regional organization, this text provides an essential foundation for introductory courses on Latin America.


Villegas Editores August 1, 2010
ISBN-10: 9588293146
Paperback
Victor Paz Otero (Author)

An intimate epic about Simón Bolívar, this novel resurrects a historical figure drenched in myth and legend as it delves into Bolívar's personal and intimate life. The Bolívar that comes alive in these pages is no mere literary character, but a real man full of contradictions—a tortured adolescent who, after walking various paths, finally chooses his own destiny.

Una épica íntima acerca de Simón Bolívar, esta novela rescata de la esfera de la historia a esta figura envuelta en mito y leyenda al desenvolverse en su íntima vida personal. El Bolívar que se despliega en estas páginas no es un mero personaje literario sino un hombre verdadero lleno de contradicciones—un adolescente torturado que, a través de los más diversos caminos, acaba escogiendo su propio destino.


ISBN-10: 0850367034
Dzodzi Tsikata (Editor), Pamela Golah (Editor)
Evaluating how land ownership relates to workings of global capital and the lives of both women and men, this analysis draws from field research in Cameroon, Ghana, Vietnam, and the forests of South America to explore relations between land ownership, gender, and class.

The study considers how, in each situation, the people’s resistance to global forces becomes a central theme, frequently through an insistence on the uniqueness of their livelihoods. Investigating the people of the Amazon, the survey focuses on the social movements that have emerged through the struggle for land rights, specifically concerning the extraction of Brazil nuts and babaçu kernels in an increasingly globalized market.

In Vietnam, the process of “de-collectivizing” rights to land is reviewed in order to comprehend how gender and other social differences are reworked in a market economy. Addressing a valuable topic, this overview raises new questions about the process of globalization, particularly in regards to the shifting relations amongst its key players.



Duke University Press - August 2010 - ISBN-10: 0822347385 Paperback
Matthew B. Karush (Editor), Oscar Chamosa (Editor)

In nearly every account of modern Argentine history, the first Peronist regime (1946-55) emerges as the critical juncture. Appealing to growing masses of industrial workers, Juan Peron built a powerful populist movement that transformed economic and political structures, promulgated new conceptions and representations of the nation, and deeply polarized the Argentine populace.

Yet until now, most scholarship on Peronism has been constrained by a narrow, top-down perspective. Inspired by the pioneering work of the historian Daniel James and new approaches to Latin American cultural history, scholars have recently begun to rewrite the history of mid-twentieth-century Argentina.

The New Cultural History of Peronism brings together the best of this important new scholarship. Situating Peronism within the broad arc of twentieth-century Argentine cultural change, the contributors focus on the interplay among cultural traditions, official policies, commercial imperatives, and popular perceptions.

They describe how the Peron regime's rhetoric and representations helped to produce new ideas of national and collective identity. At the same time, they show how Argentines pursued their interests through their engagement with the Peronist project, and, in so doing, pushed and pulled the regime in new directions.

While the volume's emphasis is on the first Peron presidency, one contributor explores the origins of the regime and two others consider Peronism's transformations in subsequent years. The essays address topics including mass culture and melodrama, folk music, pageants, social respectability, architecture, and the intense emotional investment inspired by Peronism.

They examine the experiences of women, indigenous groups, middle-class anti-Peronists, internal migrants, academics, and workers. By illuminating the connections between the state and popular consciousness, The New Cultural History of Peronism exposes the contradictions and ambivalences that have characterized Argentine populism.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Thanks so much for all this info! I've been for 2 months living in an apartment for rent in Buenos Aires and I found the Argentina and Latino America history very very interesting. So thanks for sharing this post