New Books in Latin American Studies
Episodes
Marixa Lasso, "Erased: The Untold Story of the Panama Canal" (Harvard UP, 2019)
20 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Many of our presumptions about the Panama Canal Zone are wrong; it was not carved out of uninhabited jungle, the creation of Lake Gatún did not flood...
Jessica A. J. Rich, "State-Sponsored Activism: Bureaucrats and Social Movements in Democratic Brazil" (Cambridge UP, 2019)
03 May 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Jessica Rich’s new book, State-Sponsored Activism: Bureaucrats and Social Movements in Democratic Brazil (Cambridge University Press, 2019) is a fas...
Melissa Johnson, "Becoming Creole: Nature and Race in Belize" (Rutgers UP, 2018)
26 Apr 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing from Sylvia Wynter’s call for rethinking our category of “human”, Melissa Johnson's ethnography Becoming Creole: Nature and Race in Beli...
Discussion of Massive Online Peer Review and Open Access Publishing
19 Mar 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In the information age, knowledge is power. Hence, facilitating the access to knowledge to wider publics empowers citizens and makes societies more de...
Alfredo Toro Hardy, "The Crossroads of Globalization. A Latin American View" (World Scientific Publishing. 2019)
21 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
The Crossroads of Globalization. A Latin American View (World Scientific Publishing Co. 2019) explores the complex interaction of several forces shapi...
Jessica Trisko Darden, Alexis Henshaw, and Ora Szekley, "Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars" (Georgetown UP, 2019)
11 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Insurgent Women: Female Combatants in Civil Wars (Georgetown University Press, 2019), investigates the mobilization of female fighters, women’s role...
Zeb Tortorici, "Sins Against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain" (Duke UP, 2018)
01 Feb 2019
Contributed by Lukas
In Sins Against Nature: Sex and Archives in Colonial New Spain (Duke University Press, 2018), Zeb Tortorici analyzes a vast corpus of documents in ord...
Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie Harris, "Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas" (U Georgia Press, 2018)
24 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Scholarly interest in the institution of American slavery is enjoying a kind of resurgence. Researchers are examining heretofore rarely (or never) stu...
Alexander S. Dawson, "The Peyote Effect: From the Inquisition to the War on Drugs" (U California Press, 2018)
17 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Peyote occupies a curious place in the United States and Mexico: though prohibited by law, its use remains permissible in both countries for ceremonia...
Judith Eve Lipton and David P. Barash, "Strength through Peace: How Demilitarization Led to Peace and Happiness in Costa Rica" (Oxford UP, 2019)
10 Jan 2019
Contributed by Lukas
Costa Rica is the only full-fledged and totally independent country to be entirely demilitarized. Its military was abolished in 1948, with the keys to...
Victoria Fortuna, "Moving Otherwise: Dance, Violence and Memory in Buenos Aires" (Oxford UP, 2018)
28 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Victoria Fortuna's new book Moving Otherwise: Dance, Violence and Memory in Buenos Aires (Oxford University Press, 2018) examines the different ways i...
Daniel Stahl, "Hunt for Nazis: South America's Dictatorships and the Prosecution of Nazi Crimes" (Amsterdam UP, 2018)
26 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How did the search for Nazi fugitives become a vehicle to oppose South American dictatorships? Daniel Stahl’s award-winning new book traces the stor...
Brenden W. Rensink, "Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands" (Texas A&M UP, 2018)
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book Native but Foreign: Indigenous Immigrants and Refugees in the North American Borderlands(Texas A&M University Press, 2017), Brenden W....
Ana Paulina Lee, "Mandarin Brazil: Race, Representation, and Memory" (Stanford UP, 2018)
13 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Mandarin Brazil: Race, Representation, and Memory (Stanford University Press, 2018), Ana Paulina Lee (Columbia University) analyzes r...
Mark Rice, "Making Machu Picchu: The Politics of Tourism in Twentieth-Century Peru" (UNC Press, 2018)
11 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Speaking at a 1913 National Geographic Society gala, Hiram Bingham III, the American explorer celebrated for finding the “lost city” of the Andes ...
McKenzie Wark, "General Intellects: Twenty-One Thinkers for the Twenty-First Century" (Verso, 2017)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
McKenzie Wark’s new book offers 21 focused studies of thinkers working in a wide range of fields who are worth your attention. The chapters of Gener...
Sara Komarnisky, "Mexicans in Alaska: An Ethnography of Mobility, Place, and Transnational Life" (U Nebraska Press, 2018)
06 Dec 2018
Contributed by Lukas
“There are Mexicans in Alaska?” This was the response Sara Komarnisky heard repeatedly when describing her research on three generations of transn...
Lilian Calles Barger, “The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology” (Oxford UP, 2018)
07 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A searching and richly textured history of the affinities and common origins of Latin American and North American liberation theologies, The World Com...
Lisandro Perez, “Sugar, Cigars and Revolution: The Making of Cuban New York” (NYU Press, 2018)
01 Nov 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A new book reveals an incredible slice of Cuban-American history that’s been all but forgotten until now. Lisandro Perez‘s Sugar, Cigars and Rev...
Jorge Coronado, “Portraits in the Andes: Photography and Agency, 1900-1950” (U Pittsburgh Press, 2018)
24 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Portraits in the Andes: Photography and Agency, 1900-1950 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2018), Jorge Coronado, Professor of Spanish and Portugue...
Antonio Sotomayor, “The Sovereign Colony: Olympic Sport, National Identity, and International Politics in Puerto Rico” (U Nebraska Press, 2016)
20 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Today we are joined by Antonio Sotomayor, Assistant Professor and Librarian of Latin American and Caribbean studies at the University of Illinois at U...
Alyshia Gálvez, “Eating NAFTA: Trade, Food Policies, and the Destruction of Mexico” (U. California Press, 2018)
19 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The North American Free Trade Agreement—or NAFTA, as we Americans call it—is very much in the news of late, primarily because President Trump has ...
David García, “Listening for Africa: Freedom, Modernity, and the Logic of Black Music’s African Origins” (Duke UP, 2017)
05 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Listening for Africa: Freedom, Modernity, and the Logic of Black Music’s African Origins (Duke University Press, 2017), David García reminds us...
Teishan A. Latner, “Cuban Revolution in America: Havana and the Making of a United States Left, 1968–1992” (UNC Press, 2018)
04 Sep 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Cuba’s grassroots revolution prevailed on America’s doorstep in 1959, fueling intense interest within the multiracial American Left even as it pro...
Peter James Hudson, “Bankers and Empire: How Wall Street Colonized the Caribbean” (U Chicago Press, 2017)
28 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Histories of banking and finance aren’t particularly well-known for being riveting, adventurous reads: they tend to be technical at the expense of b...
Ana Raquel Minian, “Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration” (Harvard UP, 2018)
22 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In the 1970s, the Mexican government acted to alleviate rural unemployment by supporting the migration of able-bodied men. Millions crossed into the U...
Molly Warsh, “American Baroque: Pearls and the Nature of Empire, 1492-1700” (UNC Press, 2018)
07 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The early-modern Atlantic World was a chaotic place over which European empires frequently had little control. In her new book American Baroque: Pearl...
Casey Walsh, “Virtuous Waters: Mineral Springs, Bathing, and Infrastructure in Mexico” (U California Press, 2018).
02 Aug 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Water politics have long figured prominently in Mexico, and scholars have addressed such critical topics as irrigation, dam and canal building, and re...
Pekka Hämäläinen, “The Comanche Empire” (Yale UP, 2008)
17 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In his book, The Comanche Empire (Yale University Press, 2008), Pekka Hämäläinen refutes the traditional story that Indians were bit players or un...
Andrew Selee, “Vanishing Frontiers: The Forces Driving Mexico and the United States Together” (PublicAffairs, 2018)
10 Jul 2018
Contributed by Lukas
With so much political effort placed into forcing a wall between the US and Mexico, Andrew Selee’s new book shows how the ties that bind the two cou...
Nicholas Villanueva Jr., “The Lynching of Mexicans in the Texas Borderlands” (U New Mexico Press, 2017)
22 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
More than just a civil war, the Mexican Revolution in 1910 triggered hostilities along the border between Mexico and the United States. In particular,...
Ignacio Aguiló, “The Darkening Nation: Race, Neoliberalism, and Crisis in Argentina” (U Wales Press, 2018)
19 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In The Darkening Nation: Race, Neoliberalism, and Crisis in Argentina (University of Wales Press, 2018), Ignacio Aguiló studies the sociocultural imp...
Nicole Von Germeten, “Profit and Passion: Transactional Sex in Colonial Mexico” (U California Press, 2018)
07 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Profit and Passion: Transactional Sex in Colonial Mexico (University of California Press, 2018), Nicole Von Germeten explains the most important c...
Steven Hackel, “Junípero Serra: California’s Founding Father” (Hill and Wang, 2014)
04 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
When Pope Francis visited the United States in 2015, he canonized the eighteenth-century Franciscan missionary Junípero Serra, rekindling the smolder...
Eden Medina, “Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile” (MIT Press, 2011)
01 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
It would be difficult to argue against Stafford Beer’s Project Cybersyn as the most bold and audacious chapter in the history of cybernetics. In t...
Matthew Restall, “When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History” (Ecco, 2018)
01 Jun 2018
Contributed by Lukas
On November 8, 1519, the Spanish conquistador Hernando Cortés first met Montezuma, the Aztec emperor, at the entrance to the capital city of Tenochti...
Sally and Richard Price, “Saamaka Dreaming” (Duke UP, 2017)
28 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Saamaka Dreaming (Duke University Press, 2017), Sally and Richard Price take readers back to their initial moments of fieldwork and recall their st...
Martha Few, “For All Humanity: Mesoamerican and Colonial Medicine in Enlightenment Guatemala” (U Arizona Press, 2015)
18 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Martha Few’s For All Humanity: Mesoamerican and Colonial Medicine in Enlightenment Guatemala (University of Arizona Press, 2015) describe...
Benjamin Bryce, “To Belong in Buenos Aires: Germans, Argentines, and the Rise of a Pluralist Society” (Stanford UP, 2018)
11 May 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Benjamin Bryce, Assistant Professor of History at the University of Northern British Columbia, has written a history of belonging within a culturally ...
Pablo Piccato, “A History of Infamy: Crime, Truth, and Justice in Mexico” (U California Press, 2017)
27 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
A History of Infamy: Crime, Truth, and Justice in Mexico (University of California Press, 2017) explores the definitive changes that the justice syst...
Marc Hertzman, “Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil” (Duke UP, 2013)
19 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Making Samba: A New History of Race and Music in Brazil (Duke University Press, 2013), Marc Hertzman revisits the history of Brazil’s quintessent...
Alexus McLeod, “Philosophy of the Ancient Maya: Lords of Time” (Lexington Books, 2018)
16 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
The ancient Maya are popularly known for their calendar, but their concept of time and the metaphysics surrounding that conception are not. In Philoso...
Jimmy Patino, “Raza Si, Migra No: Chicano Movement Struggles for Immigrant Rights in San Diego” (UNC Press, 2017)
05 Apr 2018
Contributed by Lukas
As immigration from Mexico to the United States grew through the 1970s and 1980s, the Border Patrol, police, and other state agents exerted increasing...
Karina O. Alvarado et al, “U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance” (U of Arizona Press, 2017)
16 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In U.S. Central Americans: Reconstructing Memories, Struggles, and Communities of Resistance (University of Arizona Press, 2017) editors Karina O. Alv...
Adriana M. Brodsky, “Sephardi, Jewish, Argentine: Community and National Identity, 1880-1960” (Indiana UP, 2016)
14 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
How do immigrant populations navigate between ancestral ties and connections to their new homes? How do their plural histories create layered identiti...
Richard Candida Smith, “Improvised Continent: Pan-American and Cultural Exchange” (Penn Press, 2017)
12 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Richard Candida Smith’s new book Improvised Continent: Pan-American and Cultural Exchange (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017), offers a richly ...
Christine Arce, “Mexico’s Nobodies: The Cultural Legacy of the Soldadera and Afro-Mexican Women” (SUNY Press, 2017)
09 Mar 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Mexico’s Nobodies: The Cultural Legacy of the Soldadera and Afro-Mexican Women (SUNY Press, 2017), Christine Arce rightfully stresses that these ...
Shiri Noy, “Banking on Health: The World Bank and Health Sector Reform in Latin America” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017)
28 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
What role has the World Bank played in influencing health sector reform in Latin America? In her new book, Banking on Health: The World Bank and Healt...
Daniel Fridman, “Freedom From Work: Embracing Financial Self-Help in the United States and Argentina” (Stanford UP, 2017)
15 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Freedom From Work: Embracing Financial Self-Help in the United States and Argentina (Stanford University Press, 2017), Daniel Fridman explores wha...
Thomas Whigham, “The Road to Armageddon: Paraguay versus the Triple Alliance, 1866-1870” (U Calgary Press, 2017)
14 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
Paraguay’s intervention in a crisis between Uruguay and Brazil in November 1864 began the bloodiest and most destructive conflict in South American ...
Deborah Vargas, et al., “Keywords for Latina/o Studies” (NYU Press, 2017)
02 Feb 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In Keywords for Latina/o Studies (NYU Press, 2017) editors Deborah Vargas, Nancy Raquel Mirabal, and Lawrence La Fountain-Stokes engage many of the f...
Kathryn A. Sloan, “Death in the City: Suicide and the Social Imaginary in Modern Mexico” (U California Press, 2017)
22 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In her recent book Death in the City: Suicide and the Social Imaginary in Modern Mexico (University of California Press, 2017), Kathryn A. Sloan explo...
Rebecca Janzen, “The National Body in Mexican Literature: Collective Challenges to Biopolitical Control” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)
10 Jan 2018
Contributed by Lukas
In The National Body in Mexican Literature: Collective Challenges to Biopolitical Control (Palgrave MacMillan, 2015), Rebecca Janzen explores the comp...
Jason Oliver Chang, “Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880-1940” (U. Illinois Press, 2017)
13 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In his new book, Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880-1940 (University of Illinois Press, 2017), Jason Oliver Chang (University of Connecticut)...
David Head, “Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic” (U. Georgia Press, 2015)
12 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
When the nations of Latin America fought for their independence in the early 19th century, they commissioned privateers stationed in the United States...
Monica Ricketts, “Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire” (Oxford UP, 2017)
07 Dec 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Monica Ricketts’ new book Who Should Rule? Men of Arms, the Republic of Letters, and the Fall of the Spanish Empire (Oxford University Press, 2017) ...
Jeffrey H. Cohen, “Eating Soup without a Spoon: Anthropological Theory and Method in the Real World” (U. Texas Press, 2015)
02 Nov 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jeffrey H. Cohen, a professor at The Ohio State University, has managed a rare feat: placing anthropology classics like Argonauts of the Western Pacif...
Ricardo D. Salvatore, “Disciplinary Conquest: U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900-1945 (Duke UP, 2016)
30 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Ricardo D. Salvatore‘s new book, Disciplinary Conquest: U.S. Scholars in South America, 1900-1945 (Duke University Press, 2016) offers an alternativ...
Tore C. Olsson, “Agrarian Crossings: Reformers and the Remaking of the US and Mexican Countryside” (Princeton UP, 2017)
23 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Tore C. Olsson‘s Agrarian Crossings: Reformers and the Remaking of the US and Mexican Countryside (Princeton University Press, 2017) tells a remarka...
Ronnie Perelis, “Narratives from the Sephardic Atlantic: Blood and Faith” (Indiana UP, 2016)
18 Oct 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In Narratives from the Sephardic Atlantic: Blood and Faith (Indiana University Press, 2016), Ronnie Perelis, Chief Rabbi Dr. Isaac Abraham and Jelena ...
Nicholas C. Kawa, “Amazonia in the Anthropocene: People, Soils, Plants, and Forests” (U. Texas Press, 2016)
05 Sep 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Widespread human alteration of the planet has led many scholars to claim that we have entered a new epoch in geological time: the Anthropocene, an age...
Juilet Hooker, “Theorizing Race in the Americas: Douglass, Sarmiento, Du Bois, and Vasconcelos” (Oxford UP, 2017)
28 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In 1845 two thinkers from the American hemisphere – the Argentinean statesman Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, and the fugitive ex-slave, abolitionist le...
Jocelyn Olcott, “International Women’s Year: The Greatest Consciousness-raising Event in History” (Oxford UP, 2017)
25 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Jocelyn Olcott is an associate professor of History and Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies at Duke University. Her book International Women’s Y...
Ernesto Bassi, “An Aqueous Territory: Sailor Geographies and New Granada’s Transimperial Greater Caribbean World” (Duke UP, 2017)
23 Aug 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Where is the Caribbean? In An Aqueous Territory: Sailor Geographies and New Granada’s Transimperial Greater Caribbean World (Duke University Press,...
Raul Coronado, “A World Not to Come: A History of Latino Writing and Print Culture” (Harvard UP, 2013)
13 Jul 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In A World Not to Come: A History of Latino Writing and Print Culture (Harvard University Press 2013) Dr. Raul Coronado provides an intellectual histo...
Dalia Muller, “Cuban Emigres and Independence in the Nineteenth-Century Gulf World (UNC Press, 2017)
23 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Cuba and Mexico have a long history of exchange and interaction. Cubans traveled to Mexico to work, engage in politics from afar, or expand businesses...
Jorge Duany, “Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know” (Oxford UP, 2017)
13 Jun 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Not quite a colony, not quite independent, fiercely nationalist, what is Puerto Rico’s status, exactly? Jorge Duany‘s Puerto Rico: What Everyone N...
Michael Neagle, “America’s Forgotten Colony: Cuba’s Isle of Pines” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
30 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Cuba’s Isle of Pines has a curious history. In the early twentieth century, hundreds of Americans moved there, hoping to get rich as citrus growers ...
Diana Kennedy, “Nothing Fancy: Recipes and Recollections of Soul-Satisfying Food” (U of Texas Press, 2016)
22 May 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Diana Kennedy, Nothing Fancy: Recipes and Recollections of Soul-Satisfying Food (University of Texas Press, 2016). Don’t be misled by this title. It...
Allison E. Fagan, “From the Edge: Chicana/Chicano Border Literature and the Politics of Print” (Rutgers UP, 2016)
24 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
What is a book? The answer, at first glance, may seem apparent: printed material consisting of a certain amount of pages. However, when a printed item...
Petra R. Rivera-Rideau, “Remixing Reggaeton: The Cultural Politics of Race in Puerto Rico” (Duke UP, 2015)
12 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Puerto Rico is often depicted as a “racial democracy” in which a history of race mixture has produced a racially harmonious society. In Remixing R...
Anne Eller, “We Dream Together: Dominican Independence, Haiti, and the Fight for Caribbean Freedom” (Duke UP, 2016)
12 Apr 2017
Contributed by Lukas
In contrast to official narratives that reiterate claims about hostility between Haiti and Santo Domingo since the 19th century, Anne Eller‘s, We Dr...
Gregory Mitchell, “Tourist Attractions: Performing Race and Masculinity in Brazil’s Sexual Economy” (U. Chicago Press, 2015)
13 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Moving through the saunas of Rio de Janeiro, the Amazonian eco-resorts of Manaus, and the Afro-Brazilian heritage of Bahia, Tourist Attractions: Perfo...
Veronica Herrera, “Water and Politics: Clientelism and Reform in Urban Mexico” (U. Michigan Press, 2017)
06 Mar 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Veronica Herrera has written Water & Politics: Clientelism and Reform in Urban Mexico (University of Michigan Press, 2017). Herrera is assistant profe...
Matthew James Crawford, “The Andean Wonder Drug: Cinchona Bark and Imperial Science in the Spanish Atlantic, 1630-1800” (U. Pittsburgh Press, 2016)
23 Feb 2017
Contributed by Lukas
Matthew James Crawford’s new book is a fascinating history of an object that was central to the history of science, technology, and medicine in the ...
Surekha Davies, “Renaissance Ethnography and the Invention of the Human: New Worlds, Maps, and Monsters” (Cambridge UP, 2016)
12 Jan 2017
Contributed by Lukas
You find a lot of strange things on late medieval and “Age of Discovery” era maps. Of course there are weird beasts of every sort: dragons, griffi...
Elizabeth Oglesby and Diane Nelson, “Guatemala: The Question of Genocide,” The Journal of Genocide Research” (Taylor and Frances, 2016)
23 Dec 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What difference can a trial make, really? In Guatemala: The Question of Genocide (Taylor and Frances, 2016), Elizabeth Obglesby and Diane Nelson start...
George T. Diaz, “Border Contraband: A History of Smuggling Across the Rio Grande” (U. of Texas Press, 2015)
08 Nov 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Border Contraband: A History of Smuggling Across the Rio Grande (University of Texas Press, 2015) Professor George T. Diaz examines a subject that ...
Mireya Loza, “Defiant Braceros: How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom” (UNC Press, 2016)
12 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Mireya Loza’s Defiant Braceros How Migrant Workers Fought for Racial, Sexual, and Political Freedom (University of North Carolina Press, 2016) sheds...
Sam Quinones, “Dreamland: The True Tale of American’s Opiate Epidemic” (Bloomsbury Press, 2015)
08 Sep 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In the early 2000s, the press–at least in Boston, where I was living at the time–was full of shrill stories about drug-crazed addicts breaking int...
Peter Wade, et. al. “Mestizo Genomics: Race Mixture, Nation, and Science in Latin America (Duke UP, 2014)
02 Aug 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Over the past quarter-century, scientists have been mapping and exploring the human genome to locate the genetic basis of disease and track the histor...
John Alba Cutler, “Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature” (Oxford UP, 2015)
26 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Ends of Assimilation: The Formation of Chicano Literature (Oxford University Press, 2015), John Alba Cutler provides a literary history of Chicano/...
Daryle Williams, “The Rio de Janeiro Reader: History, Culture, Politics” (Duke UP, 2016)
10 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Rio de Janeiro recently celebrated its 450th anniversary. Founded March, 1565, The Very Loyal and Heroic City of Saint Sebastian of Rio de Janeiro (th...
Frank P. Barajas, “Curious Unions: Mexican American Workers and Resistance in Oxnard, California, 1898-1961” (U. Nebraska Press, 2012)
30 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In Curious Unions: Mexican American Workers and Resistance in Oxnard, California, 1898-1961 (University of Nebraska Press, 2012) Dr. Frank P. Barajas ...
Alejandra Dubcovsky, “Informed Power: Communication in the Early American South” (Harvard UP, 2016)
26 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Informed Power: Communication in the Early American South (Harvard University Press, 2016) maps the intricate, intersecting channels of information ex...
Phillip Penix-Tadsen, “Cultural Code: Video Games and Latin America” (MIT Press, 2016)
14 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Symbols have meanings that change depending upon the cultural context. But how do we discuss symbols, their meanings, and their cultural contexts with...
Geoffrey Baker, “El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth” (Oxford UP, 2014)
02 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
El Sistema, the massive Venezuelan youth orchestra program, has been hailed in some quarters as the next big idea in music education (if not as the sa...
David Sartorius, “Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba” (Duke UP, 2014)
22 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
David Sartorius‘s recent book Ever Faithful: Race, Loyalty, and the Ends of Empire in Spanish Cuba (Duke University Press, 2014), examines Cuban soc...
Renata Keller, “Mexico’s Cold War: Cuba, the United States, and the Legacy of the Mexican Revolution” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
07 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
When former Mexican president Lazaro Cardenas traveled to Havana in 1959 to celebrate the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, he stood shoulder to should...
Sarah Bowen, “Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production” (U of California Press, 2015)
06 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In her new book, Divided Spirits: Tequila, Mezcal, and the Politics of Production (University of California Press, 2015), Sarah Bowen presents the cha...
Michelle Chase, “Revolution within the Revolution: Women and Gender Politics in Cuba, 1952-1962” (UNC Press, 2015)
03 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This episode features Michelle Chase, who joins us to discuss her fascinating new book, Revolution Within the Revolution: Women and Gender Politics in...
Ulla Berg, “Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S.” (NYU Press, 2015)
18 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Ulla Berg’s new book Mobile Selves: Race, Migration, and Belonging in Peru and the U.S. (New York University Press, 2015) highlights the deeply hist...
Neil Roberts, “Freedom as Marronage” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be free? How can paying attention to the relationship between freedom and slavery help construct a concept and practice of freedo...
Julie M. Weise, “Corazon de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U.S. South Since 1910” (UNC Press, 2015)
17 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Julie M. Weise‘s new book Corazon de Dixie: Mexicanos in the U.S. South Since 1910 (UNC Press, 2015) is the first book to comprehensively document M...
Arlene Davila, “Latinos, Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People” (U California Press, 2012)
11 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Latinos Inc.: The Marketing and Making of a People (University of California Press, updated ed. 2012) Arlene Davila, Professor of Anthropology at N...
Yarimar Bonilla, “Non-Sovereign Futures: French Caribbean Politics in the Wake of Disenchantment” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
10 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
As overseas departments of France, the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique are frequently described as anomalies within the postcolonial Caribbean. Y...
Angelique V. Nixon, “Resisting Paradise: Tourism, Diaspora, and Sexuality in Caribbean Culture” (U Press of Mississippi, 2015)
02 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
It’s easy to conjure images of paradise when thinking of the Caribbean. The region is know for its lovely beaches, temperate weather, and gorgeous l...
Rebecca Gordon-Nesbitt, “To Defend the Revolution is to Defend Culture: The Cultural Policy of The Cuban Revolution” (PM Press, 2015)
01 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What are the alternatives to the current neo-liberal cultural settlement prevailing in much of the global north? In To Defend the Revolution is to Def...
Malick Ghachem’s “The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution” (Cambridge UP, 2012)
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Malick Ghachem‘s recent book The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2012) takes a long look at Haiti’s colonial hi...
Edmund Hamann, et al., “Revisiting Education in the New Latino Diaspora” (Information Age, 2015)
20 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Dr. Edmund Hamann, Dr. Stanton Wortham, Dr. Enrique G. Murillo (Eds.) have provided a fascinating and expansive volume on Latino education in the US t...