New Books in Latin American Studies
Episodes
Ruben Flores, “Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico’s Melting Pot and Civil Rights in the United States” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
20 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Ruben Flores is an associate professor of American Studies at the University of Kansas. His book Backroads Pragmatists: Mexico’s Melting Pot and Civ...
Sonia Song-Ha Lee, “Building A Latino Civil Rights Movement” (UNC Press, 2014)
20 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Building A Latino Civil Rights Movement: Puerto Ricans, African Americans, and the Pursuit of Racial Justice in New York City (UNC Press, 2014), As...
Jason McGraw, “The Work of Recognition: Caribbean Colombia and the Postemancipation Struggle for Citizenship” (UNC Press, 2014)
20 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1850s, when the majority of the population of Colombia (known then as New Granada) embraced the emancipation of the remaining 17,000 people sti...
Erika Robb Larkins, “The Spectacular Favela: Violence in Modern Brazil” (U of California Press, 2015)
09 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
After the emancipation of slavery in the late nineteenth century, Afro-Brazilians moved to cities like Rio de Janeiro in search of employment. Because...
Juanita De Barros, “Reproducing the British Caribbean: Sex, Gender, and Population Politics after Slavery” (UNC Press, 2014)
06 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As slavery came to an end in the Caribbean’s British colonies, officials and local reformers began to worry about how and whether they would convinc...
Ilan Stavans and Jorge J. E. Garcia, “Thirteen Ways of Looking At Latino Art” (Duke UP, 2014)
30 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As demographic trends continue to mark the so-called “Latinization” of the U.S., pundits across various media outlets struggle to understand the e...
Gregory O’Malley, “Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807” (UNC Press for the Omohundro Institute, 2014)
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Gregory E. O’Malley examines a crucial, but almost universally overlooked, aspect of the African slave trade in his new book Final Passages: The Int...
Roberto Lint Sagarena, “Aztlan and Arcadia: Religion, Ethnicity, and the Creation of Place” (NYU Press, 2014)
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The (re)making of place has composed an essential aspect of Southern California history from the era of Spanish colonialism to the present. In Aztlan ...
Jenny Shaw, “Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean: Irish, Africans, and the Construction of Difference” (U of Georgia Press, 2013)
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jenny Shaw‘s recent book Everyday Life in the Early English Caribbean: Irish, Africans, and the Construction of Difference (University of Georgia Pr...
Brett Hendrickson, “Border Medicine: A Transcultural History of Mexican American Curanderismo” (NYU Press, 2014)
17 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mexican American religious healing – often called curanderismo – is a vital component of life in the US-Mexican borderlands. In his book Border Me...
Deborah R. Vargas, “Dissonant Divas in Chicana Music: The Limits of La Onda” (U of Minnesota Press, 2012)
14 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In her transformative text Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza, Gloria Anzaldua referred to the U.S.-Mexico border region as “una herida abiert...
Louis A Perez Jr, “The Structure of Cuban History: Meanings and Purpose of the Past” (U of North Carolina Press, 2013)
30 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Cuba is changing fast. Or is it? Our understandings of Cuban history are shaped by decades of polarized interpretations. Cubans themselves have a part...
Laura Isabel Serna, “Making Cinelandia: American Films and Mexican Film Culture Before the Golden Age” (Duke UP, 2014)
17 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
During the early decades of the 20thcentury the nation of Mexico entered the modern era through a series of social, political, and economic transforma...
William LeoGrande and Peter Kornbluh, “Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana” (UNC Press, 2014)
24 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In December 2014, Cuba and the United States announced their renewed efforts to normalize relations. Diplomatic ties were severed in 1961 following th...
Megan Threlkeld, “Pan-American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexico” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
21 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Megan Threlkeld is an associate professor of history at Denison University. Her book Pan-American Women: U.S. Internationalists and Revolutionary Mexi...
Carlos Kevin Blanton, “George I. Sanchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration” (Yale UP, 2015)
12 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Although the designation now applies to American citizens of Mexican ethnicity writ large, the term Mexican American (hyphenated or not) also refers t...
Ada Ferrer, “Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
09 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
When the Haitian Revolution abolished slavery in Haiti and established its independence from France, it affected surrounding colonies in profound and ...
Alejandro Velasco, “Barrio Rising: Urban Popular Politics and the Making of Modern Venezuela” (U of California Press, 2015)
28 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In the mid-1950s, Venezuela’s military government razed a massive slum settlement in the heart of Caracas and replaced it with what was at the time ...
Geraldo L. Cadava, “Standing on Common Ground: The Making of a Sunbelt Borderland” (Harvard UP, 2013)
14 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Due in large part to sensationalist representations in contemporary media and politics, the U.S.-Mexico border is popularly understood as a space of i...
Rory Carroll, “Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela” (Penguin Books, 2013)
09 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Historically, Venezuela is known as one of the most stable Latin American nations of the twentieth century. The subsequent discovery of oil transform...
Kevin O’Neill, “Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala” (U of California Press, 2015)
02 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Kevin O’Neill‘s fascinating book Secure the Soul: Christian Piety and Gang Prevention in Guatemala (University of California Press, 2015) traces t...
Miriam Pawel, “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez” (Bloomsbury Press, 2014)
29 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Cesar Chavez founded a labor union. Launched a movement. And inspired a generation. Two Decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant L...
Barbara Weinstein, “The Color of Modernity: Sao Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil” (Duke UP, 2015)
18 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Brazilian society is rife with inequality. In her brilliant new book The Color of Modernity: Sao Paulo and the Making of Race and Nation in Brazil (D...
Alexander Avina, “Specters of Revolution: Peasant Guerrillas in the Cold War Mexican Countryside” (Oxford UP, 2014)
12 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Since September 2014, much of Mexico has been gripped by the story of the Ayotzinapa kidnappings – the mass abduction of 43 rural schoolteachers in ...
Rebecca Earle, “The Body of the Conquistador” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
06 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Rebecca Earle‘s recent book The Body of the Conquistador: Food, Race and the Colonial Experience in Spanish America (Cambridge University Press, 201...
Ana Marcia Ochoa Gautier, “Aurality: Listening and Knowledge in Nineteenth-Century Colombia” (Duke UP, 2014)
17 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Beyond what people say, what their voices sound like matters. Voice, as Ana Marcia Ochoa Gautier argues in this marvelous new book Aurality: Listening...
Elizabeth Maddock Dillon, “New World Drama: The Performative Commons in the Atlantic World, 1649-1849” (Duke UP, 2014)
23 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Riots, audiences on stage, fabulous costumes, gripping stories. That’s what theater was like in the Atlantic world in the age of slavery and colonia...
Edward Telles and PERLA, “Pigmentocracies: Ethnicity, Race and Color in Latin America” (UNC Press, 2014)
09 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
How do race, ethnicity and appearance work on Latin America? Edward Telles‘ and the Project on Ethnicity and Race in Latin America‘s (PERLA) new b...
Alina Garcia-Lapuerta, “La Belle Creole” (Chicago Review Press, 2014)
18 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
One of the fundamental functions of biography is the preservation of stories. But it also acts to resurrect the stories that may have fallen from view...
Erik Ching, “Authoritarian El Salvador: Politics and the Origins of the Military Regimes, 1880-1940,” (University of Notre Dame Press, 2014)
03 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
During the 20th century, El Salvador suffered from one of the longest periods of military rule and political domination in the Americas, beginning wit...
Charles F. Walker, “The Tupac Amaru Rebellion” (Harvard UP, 2014)
23 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Charles F. Walker‘s book The Tupac Amaru Rebellion (Harvard University Press, 2014) charts the rise, fall, and legacy of a massive uprising in colon...
Alex Nading, “Mosquito Trails: Ecology, Health and the Politics of Entanglement” (University of California Press, 2014)
18 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Dengue fever is on the rise globally. Since it is transmitted by mosquitoes which reside and reproduce in human environments, eradication efforts invo...
Scott Mainwaring and Anibal Perez-Linan, “Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
15 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Scott Mainwaring and Anibal Perez-Linan are the authors of Democracies and Dictatorships in Latin America: Emergence, Survival, and Fall (Cambridge Un...
Lyman Johnson, “Workshop of Revolution: Plebian Buenos Aires and the Atlantic World, 1776-1810” (Duke UP, 2011)
13 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Lyman Johnson‘s book Workshop of Revolution: Plebian Buenos Aires and the Atlantic World, 1776-1810 (Duke University Press, 2011) analyzes the econo...
Kathleen Lopez, “Chinese Cubans: A Transnational History” (UNC Press, 2013)
21 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Successive waves of migration brought thousands of Chinese laborers to Cuba over the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The coolie trade, which was m...
Caterina Pizzigoni, “The Life Within: Local Indigenous Society in Mexico’s Toluca Valley, 1650-1800” (Stanford UP, 2012)
13 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Caterina Pizzigoni’s book The Life Within: Local Indigenous Society in Mexico’s Toluca Valley, 1650-1800 (Stanford University Press, 2012) provide...
Kirsten Weld, “Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala” (Duke UP, 2014)
06 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Kirsten Weld‘s book Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala (Duke University Press, 2014) tells the story of the 2005 discovery o...
Marcia Ochoa, “Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela” (Duke UP, 2014)
30 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Marcia Ochoa‘s book Queen for a Day: Transformistas, Beauty Queens, and the Performance of Femininity in Venezuela (Duke University Press, 2014) is ...
Gregory Weeks, “Understanding Latin American Politics” (Pearson, 2014)
08 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What factors compel Central American residents to flee their home countries and head to the United States? What do national elections in Latin America...
Roger Kittleson, “The Country of Football: Soccer and the Making of Modern Brazil” (University of California Press, 2014) and Joshua Nadel, “Fútbol! Why Soccer Matters in Latin America” (University Press of Florida, 2014)
24 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Passion. Flair. Instinct. Improvisation. As the World Cup advances to the knockout stage, you’ll hear these terms associated with the football style...
Omar Valerio-Jimenez, “River of Hope: Forging Identity and Nation in the Rio Grande Borderlands” (Duke UP, 2013)
12 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Historically speaking, who you were depended on who your rulers were and the ethnic identity (including language, religion, and folkways) of “your”...
Cymene Howe, “Intimate Activism: The Struggle for Sexual Rights in Postrevolutionary Nicaragua” (Duke UP, 2013)
10 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
With Intimate Activism: The Struggle for Sexual Rights in Postrevolutionary Nicaragua (Duke University Press, 2013), Cymene Howe offers an ethnograp...
David Nemer, “Favela Digital: The Other Side of Technology” (GSA Editora e Grafica, 2013)
05 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Inherently problematic in most mainstream discussions of the impact of technology is the dominant western or global northern perspective. In this way,...
Daniel Altschuler and Javier Corrales, “The Promise of Participation” (Palgrave-MacMillan, 2014)
21 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Altschuler and Javier Corrales are the authors of The Promise of Participation: Experiments in Participatory Governance in Honduras and Guatema...
Jason Ruiz, “Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire” (University of Texas Press, 2014)
11 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Americans in the Treasure House: Travel to Porfirian Mexico and the Cultural Politics of Empire (University of Texas Press, 2014), Jason Ruiz explo...
Miranda Spieler, “Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana” (Harvard University Press, 2012)
28 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Empire and Underworld: Captivity in French Guiana (Harvard University Press, 2012), historian Miranda Spieler tells of the transformation of a slav...
Virginia Garrard-Burnett, Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit (Oxford UP, 2011)
17 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
I have a colleague at Newman who takes students to Guatemala every summer. Since I arrived she’s encouraged me to join her. I would stay with th...
Jose Angel Hernandez, “Mexican American Colonization during the Nineteenth Century” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
06 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Americans talk a lot about the flow of Mexican immigrants across their southern border. To some that flow is seen as patently illegal and dangerous. T...
Thomas H. Guthrie, “Recognizing Heritage: The Politics of Multiculturalism in New Mexico” (University of Nebraska Press, 2013)
20 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
New Mexico is a cultural borderland, marked by the interaction of Indian, Spanish, Mexican, and Anglo-American peoples over the past four hundred year...
Eduardo Kohn, “How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human” (University of California Press, 2013)
09 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When you open Eduardo Kohn‘s How Forests Think: Toward an Anthropology beyond the Human (University of California Press, 2013), you are entering a f...
Erica Cusi Wortham, “Indigenous Media in Mexico: Culture, Community, and the State” (Duke University Press, 2013)
14 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Videography is a powerful tool for recording and representing aspects of human society and culture, and anthropologists have long used – and debated...
Scott Ickes, “African-Brazilian Culture and Regional Identity in Bahia, Brazil” (University Press of Florida, 2013)
07 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
From the sounds of Samba to the spectacles of Carnival, Afro-Brazilian traditions are today seen as emblematic of Brazil and especially of Salvador de...
Ioan Grillo, “El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency” (Bloomsbury, 2012)
19 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Today I spoke to Ioan Grillo about his book El Narco: Inside Mexico’s Criminal Insurgency (Bloomsbury, 2012). This book is an excellent introduction...
Ron Schmidt (et al.), “Newcomers, Outsiders, and Insiders: Immigrants and the American Racial Politics in the Early 21st Century” (University of Michigan Press, 2013)
05 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Ron Schmidt is the co-author (with Yvette M. Alex-Assensoh, Andrew L. Aoki, and Rodney Hero) of Newcomers, Outsiders, and Insiders: Immigrants and the...
Lance R. Blyth, “Chiricahua and Janos: Communities of Violence in the Southwestern Borderlands, 1680-1880” (Nebraska UP, 2012)
02 May 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Most people today think of war–or really violence of any sort–as for the most part useless. It’s better, we say, just to talk things out or perh...
Paul Kan, “Cartels at War: Mexico’s Drug-Fueled Violence and the Threat to US National Security” (Potomac Books, 2012)
07 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The violence in Mexico is receiving a lot of media attention internationally. Paul Rexton Kan has produced a book that provides us with a comprehensiv...
Ilan Stavans and Steve Sheinkin, “El Iluminado: A Graphic Novel” (Basic Books, 2012)
14 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Are you looking for a good Hanukkah gift? A good Christmas gift? Heck, any gift? Or maybe you just want to read a terrific book? Well I’ve got just ...
Daniela Bleichmar, “Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment” (University of Chicago Press, 2012)
26 Nov 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Daniela Bleichmar‘s new book is a story about 12,000 images. In Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenm...
Isaac Campos, “Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs” (UNC Press, 2012)
31 Jul 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Isaac Campos is the author of Home Grown: Marijuana and the Origins of Mexico’s War on Drugs (University of North Carolina Press, 2012). Campos is a...
Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, “Mexico’s Indigenous Communities: Their Lands and Histories, 1500-2010” (University of Colorado Press, 2010)
17 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In my work with pre-Hispanic and colonial Mexican pictorial texts, I often wish I could talk with the people who authored them. In the academic settin...
Ethelia Ruiz Medrano, "Mexico's Indigenous Communities: Their Lands and Histories, 1500-2010" (U Colorado Press, 2010)
17 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In my work with pre-Hispanic and colonial Mexican pictorial texts, I often wish I could talk with the people who authored them. In the academic settin...
Joel Wolfe, “Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity” (Oxford UP, 2010)
19 Mar 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Here’s something I learned by reading Joel Wolfe’s terrific Autos and Progress: The Brazilian Search for Modernity (Oxford, 2010): the United Stat...
William Beezley, “Mexicans in Revolution, 1910-1946” (University of Nebraska Press, 2009)
08 May 2009
Contributed by Lukas
It’s shocking and embarrassing how little I, as an American, know about Mexican history. Mexico shares a 2,000 mile long border with the United Stat...
William Beezley, “Mexican National Identity: Memory, Innuendo and Popular Culture” (University of Arizona Press, 2008)
01 Aug 2008
Contributed by Lukas
The question of how we come to understand who we are–nationality-wise–is a thorny one. In a widely-read book, Benedict Anderson said we got nation...