"The Broad and the Deep," introduction to H-LatAm reviews

Dear Neteros, We are happy to present four reviews for your enjoyment. As a group, they hint at the full length of interests implied in Latin American History. Both major periods are here represented, as well as South America and the Caribbean region. Our luck is such that among these reviews you will even find two essays attempting to do more than just examining a book.


1- In the review entitled, “Bolivia(s) Ascending,” David Sheinin opens up for us a collection of essays about Bolivia’s recent history. He does more than just reveal the publication’s links to the current administration. Sheinin is critical, but he also helps us see Evo Morales outside of the polarizing rhetoric that have characterized the recent events in Bolivia, and appreciate both his administration’s appeal and limitations.

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31614

David M. K. Sheininhttp://www.trentu.ca/history/publications_sheinin.php

2- Matilde Zimmermann provides us with a sense of the current debate over theinvasion of Bay of Pig or or Playa Girón by interlacing the critical examinations of two recent books. One of the books is a valuable Spanish translation, with a stimulating analysis, which reflects the author’s relative advantage on the island of Cuba. The other book is also predisposed, but toward the U.S., where the author originated. Both books mostly rely on different caches of sources, and as such they are more useful together than in isolation,
which is why Zimmermann tied them in tandem.

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31785
Matilde Zimmermann
http://www.slc.edu/undergraduate/study/history-social-sciences/history/faculty.html

3- The essay on Lascasian Studies is also an attempt to appreciate the field rather than just a single book. In here Lawrence A. Clayton focuses on three fairly currentbooks to draw attention to larger and older patterns of thinking about Bartolomé de las Casas. In this relatively longer essay, Clayton considers most major works about the “Defender of the Indians” to offer a heartfelt sympathetic line of reasoning in favor of Las Casas’s legacy. Meant to incite discussion, this essay takes a definitive position in a debate as old as the man himself.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31181

Lawrence A. Clayton, University of Alabama
http://www.as.ua.edu/history/html/faculty/clayton.html


4- In, “Evolution of the Cuban Revolution,” Frank Argote-Freyre uses his familiarity with older versions of Balfour’s profile on Castro to assess the newness in the latest edition. By studying Castro we also study the Cuban Revolution, and in Balfour’s
book we are reminded about key points like how in the internal debates within the Cuban Revolution José Martí was more important than even Karl Marx. Argote-Freyre offers an engaging and impartial assessment of the book.

http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31445

Frank Argote-Freyre, Kean University
http://www.kean.edu/~history/faculty.html#FRANK_ARGOTE-FREYRE


Thanks, again to my colleague editors Peter Blanchard, John F. Schwaller and Matthew D. Rothwell.


Sincerely yours,

Dennis R. Hidalgo
H-LatAm Review Editor
Virginia Tech