The power of unity!
Video Clip: 400 Millions of Africans
Download his PPT here.
Showing posts with label Latin American History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Latin American History. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Shadle on Garvey's 400 Millions
Professor Shadle's presenting about Garvey
The power of unity!
Download his PPT here.
The power of unity!
Download his PPT here.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Welcoming Back H-LatAm Reviews
| From: "Dennis R. Hidalgo" List Editor: "Dennis R. Hidalgo" Editor's Subject: Welcoming Back H-LatAm Reviews Author's Subject: Welcoming Back H-LatAm Reviews Date Written: Sun, 5 Feb 2012 04:22:19 -0400 Date Posted: Mon, 05 Feb 2012 03:22:19 -0500 |
Dear Neteros,
After an involuntary yet admittedly inconvenient hiatus, H-LatAm Reviews are back
serving. Today nine fine scholars appraise recent books covering a diverse range
of topics and geographical regions in Latin American History. As a group we seek
to present a snapshot of the research front lines and a discussion of
historiography.
- Ritualized Resistance
- Moving across the Transnational Commercial Orbit
- Neoliberalism and the Reconfiguration of Agriculture in Socialist and Former Socialist Countries
- Sources and Interpretation: U.S. and Latin American Collection
- The Terror of Natural Right
- Institutional Stability and Social Uncertainty: Unpacking theChallenges of Democracy in Brazil in the Twenty-First Century
- Class and the Perseverance of Tejano Elites
- The History of Food in the Black Atlantic
- Architecture in the Hands of the People
We hope these works will help in promoting scholarly discussion, and may even help
in shaping the direction of future scholarship.
Sincerely yours,
Dennis R. Hidalgo
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
May's Second Set of Reviews
Dear Neter@s,
In our second bouquet of reviews this month we offer you analyses of five books covering the countries of Chile, Mexico and the Andean region. They also deal with the topics of U.S. and Latin American Historiography, colonial medicine, modern propaganda, presidential politics, indigenous political systems, and cultural anthropology. We invite you to take pleasure and benefit fromtheir reading. I offer you simple summaries to whet your appetite
Susan E. Ramirez (Texas Christian University) offers us a close analysis of the peculiar work of cultural anthropologist Denise Arnold and archaeologist Christine Hastorf in the book _Heads of State_. In this book Arnold and Hastorf look at the symbolic power of heads in the Andes, and elaborate a hypothesis about cultural practice and indigenous political systems. In the review, Ramirez tells us she found merit in the discussion on the importance of heads in centripetal versus centrifugal polities. Also useful was the discussion on the Andean heterarchichal system of organization, teeming with overlays, multiplicity, and mixed ascendancy,but concurrent with patterns of relation. This argument relates with recent scholarshipthat point to a less centralized system of politics in the Andes than previously thought. Ramirez, however, found that from the historian point of view the book opens itself to a huge gap in time full of anachronisms, which tends to take some issues for granted (i.e., the concept of the Ayllu). Nevertheless, this is a book Ramirez recommends reading.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31882
Peter Villella (University of North Carolina in Greensboro) reflects on Sherry Field’s _Pestilence and Headcolds_. How would life be in a time when everybody, from the top-level ranks of society to the least known person, is dreadfully concerned with death? What underlying epistemologies would we find beneath the plethora of health and wellnesspractices people used to survive? Field’s book focuses on colonial Mexico and looks at the cultureof sickness and health in the time when epidemics and the loss of life were unprecedented. This is also the time in which people lived in the midst of two apparently opposing cosmologies; one informed by indigenous belief in the supernatural sources of illness and the other acquainted with the medieval humorism of Galenus. Field’s main contributions, according to Villella, are in the synthesis of thescholarship and in the broad interpretative framework. Despiteits structural limitations (i.e., extensiveness), the reader can learn about a world in which a cut, a minor infection and even a sniffle could be ground for distress.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31466
Thomas Schoonover (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) reviews Helen Delpar’s book, _Looking South_. Delpar’s contribution to scholarship is one that present historiography in a different package: as a narrative of the history of US people fascinated with the study of Latin America since the 19th Century. This is a study of both US, and Latin American History, but seen principally from the eyes of US writers. Here we learn about why the more formal and scholarly interest in Latin America began after the works of people like William H. Prescott and Washington Irving. Delpar informs the reader about the development of professional and academic institutions that led to the current forms of Latin American scholarship in the US. Schoonover argues that in telling us personal narratives Delpar has made historiography enjoyable to read.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31628
Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney tells us about a book that Silvia Borzutzky and Gregory B. Weeks have edited, which sheds light on why voters in Chile chose a government of the right to replace Michelle Bachelet. But this is not a pundit book attempting to explain in vain the inscrutable course of presidential elections. Instead, it is a collection of fine scholarly essays querying the historical post-Pinochet period. The focus is the Bachelet’s administration, as the book title would reveal: _The Bachelet Government_. That she was the first Chilean women president is just one of the many points of interest of her presidency. She also openly attempted the impossible: to promote a more equal society while still adhering to most of the neoliberal policies of her predecessors. As it happens often with political histories, the consensus of these authors is that the realities are more interesting and more complex than what they appear from a distance. At the end, you may not know everything with certainty, but after reading this book, Pieper Mooney affirms, at least you gain a better insight on why the nation took the direction it did in the last election.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31660
Andrae Marak reviews a book about the production of propaganda, governmental and otherwise, in post-revolutionary Mexico. The word propaganda often masquerades the manipulation of people’s opinions. Monica A. Rankin, however, uses a less narrow definition in her book, _¡Mexico, la patria!_. In it, she looks for patterns in the messages aimed at large Mexican audiences within the span of three periods: before WII, during WII and post-WII. The book offers suggestions, but avoids gauging the propaganda effects on people. It also brings new light into the U.S. and Mexico’s relations. Most interesting to me is how Rankin shows the symbolic (and discursive) co-option of the Mexican Revolution. In the 1940s, with the purpose of promoting national unity, the Ávila Camacho government successfully propagated the idea of the Mexican Revolution as a positive historical event that had set the nation on a democratic process. Taken as a whole, the nation-building messages behind all propaganda schemes, either from the right or from the left, were aimed to both industrialize and homogenize cultural Mexico. Marak recommends Rankin’s work as necessary for those studying post-revolutionary Mexico and those wanting to explore modern propaganda production.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32059
I want to thank our competent reviewers and dependable H-LatAm editors who have loaned me a “second pair of eyes” to read the reviews.
Cheers,
Dennis R. Hidalgo
In our second bouquet of reviews this month we offer you analyses of five books covering the countries of Chile, Mexico and the Andean region. They also deal with the topics of U.S. and Latin American Historiography, colonial medicine, modern propaganda, presidential politics, indigenous political systems, and cultural anthropology. We invite you to take pleasure and benefit fromtheir reading. I offer you simple summaries to whet your appetite
Susan E. Ramirez (Texas Christian University) offers us a close analysis of the peculiar work of cultural anthropologist Denise Arnold and archaeologist Christine Hastorf in the book _Heads of State_. In this book Arnold and Hastorf look at the symbolic power of heads in the Andes, and elaborate a hypothesis about cultural practice and indigenous political systems. In the review, Ramirez tells us she found merit in the discussion on the importance of heads in centripetal versus centrifugal polities. Also useful was the discussion on the Andean heterarchichal system of organization, teeming with overlays, multiplicity, and mixed ascendancy,but concurrent with patterns of relation. This argument relates with recent scholarshipthat point to a less centralized system of politics in the Andes than previously thought. Ramirez, however, found that from the historian point of view the book opens itself to a huge gap in time full of anachronisms, which tends to take some issues for granted (i.e., the concept of the Ayllu). Nevertheless, this is a book Ramirez recommends reading.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31882
Peter Villella (University of North Carolina in Greensboro) reflects on Sherry Field’s _Pestilence and Headcolds_. How would life be in a time when everybody, from the top-level ranks of society to the least known person, is dreadfully concerned with death? What underlying epistemologies would we find beneath the plethora of health and wellnesspractices people used to survive? Field’s book focuses on colonial Mexico and looks at the cultureof sickness and health in the time when epidemics and the loss of life were unprecedented. This is also the time in which people lived in the midst of two apparently opposing cosmologies; one informed by indigenous belief in the supernatural sources of illness and the other acquainted with the medieval humorism of Galenus. Field’s main contributions, according to Villella, are in the synthesis of thescholarship and in the broad interpretative framework. Despiteits structural limitations (i.e., extensiveness), the reader can learn about a world in which a cut, a minor infection and even a sniffle could be ground for distress.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31466
Thomas Schoonover (University of Louisiana at Lafayette) reviews Helen Delpar’s book, _Looking South_. Delpar’s contribution to scholarship is one that present historiography in a different package: as a narrative of the history of US people fascinated with the study of Latin America since the 19th Century. This is a study of both US, and Latin American History, but seen principally from the eyes of US writers. Here we learn about why the more formal and scholarly interest in Latin America began after the works of people like William H. Prescott and Washington Irving. Delpar informs the reader about the development of professional and academic institutions that led to the current forms of Latin American scholarship in the US. Schoonover argues that in telling us personal narratives Delpar has made historiography enjoyable to read.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31628
Jadwiga E. Pieper Mooney tells us about a book that Silvia Borzutzky and Gregory B. Weeks have edited, which sheds light on why voters in Chile chose a government of the right to replace Michelle Bachelet. But this is not a pundit book attempting to explain in vain the inscrutable course of presidential elections. Instead, it is a collection of fine scholarly essays querying the historical post-Pinochet period. The focus is the Bachelet’s administration, as the book title would reveal: _The Bachelet Government_. That she was the first Chilean women president is just one of the many points of interest of her presidency. She also openly attempted the impossible: to promote a more equal society while still adhering to most of the neoliberal policies of her predecessors. As it happens often with political histories, the consensus of these authors is that the realities are more interesting and more complex than what they appear from a distance. At the end, you may not know everything with certainty, but after reading this book, Pieper Mooney affirms, at least you gain a better insight on why the nation took the direction it did in the last election.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31660
Andrae Marak reviews a book about the production of propaganda, governmental and otherwise, in post-revolutionary Mexico. The word propaganda often masquerades the manipulation of people’s opinions. Monica A. Rankin, however, uses a less narrow definition in her book, _¡Mexico, la patria!_. In it, she looks for patterns in the messages aimed at large Mexican audiences within the span of three periods: before WII, during WII and post-WII. The book offers suggestions, but avoids gauging the propaganda effects on people. It also brings new light into the U.S. and Mexico’s relations. Most interesting to me is how Rankin shows the symbolic (and discursive) co-option of the Mexican Revolution. In the 1940s, with the purpose of promoting national unity, the Ávila Camacho government successfully propagated the idea of the Mexican Revolution as a positive historical event that had set the nation on a democratic process. Taken as a whole, the nation-building messages behind all propaganda schemes, either from the right or from the left, were aimed to both industrialize and homogenize cultural Mexico. Marak recommends Rankin’s work as necessary for those studying post-revolutionary Mexico and those wanting to explore modern propaganda production.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32059
I want to thank our competent reviewers and dependable H-LatAm editors who have loaned me a “second pair of eyes” to read the reviews.
Cheers,
Dennis R. Hidalgo
Monday, May 2, 2011
Reviews: The First Five of May 2011
The first week of May welcomes us with five exciting reviews. They cover the topics of (1) autobiography as a form of historical journey in Jamaica, (2) little known, but notable Cuban art, (3) an attempt to understand paramilitary and death squads, (4) the role of enslaved soldiers in the wars for independence, and (5) an essay on a contentious book about the Catholic Church in Latin America. True to our international appeal, we continue publishing reviews in Spanish (and seek to publish in French and Portuguese) and search for diverse and able reviewers, even outside of the United States (and aim to review more works published abroad too).
Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (Université Laval) writes in
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31743Jayeel S. Cornelio (National University of Singapore) takes the arduous task of bringing into a scholarly di
My sincere thanks to the reviewers for their contributions and for the support from H-LatAm editors.
Cheers,
Dennis R. Hidalgo
H-LatAm Reviews
Saturday, April 30, 2011
About Haiti, Brazil and a Commodity Chain
Last of April’s Reviews
Today we present to you three reviews. One is about the momentous yet inscrutable Caribbean Revolution in Haiti (perhaps more significant now after the devastating 2010 earthquake). Another is about Brazil’s remarkable recent political history and foreign relations. And the last review is about cocaine, and though spotlighting the Andean region, it covers much more than that. So, with them we have a fair representation of Latin American geography.
Erica Johnson (Florida State University) first tells us that the book, _The Tree of Liberty_, is worth reading because it helps illuminate the many perplexing and subtle repercussions of the successful Haitian transformationfrom colonial slavery on Hispaniola. The editor of this collection, Doris L. Garraway, have gathered an exciting team of interdisciplinary scholars to examine cause and effect, literary consequence, and (most stimulating to me) the tracking of rumors and dissemination of ideas among Black populations outside of Haiti. At the core are concerns from scholars like Michel-Rolph Trouillot and David Patrick Geggus, who during the 1990s tried to initiate deeper understanding and interest on the Haitian Revolution and its impact throughout the Atlantic. Johnson gives us a close analysis of the original essays in this collection, helping to place them into its historiographical context.
In the second review, Shawn Smallman (Portland State University) informs us about Brazil’s potentially new boom through an examination of Sean W. Burges’ book. Smallman explains how _Brazilian Foreign Policy after the Cold War_ is among the best of a number ofpublications trying to explain Brazil’s political and economic resurgence in the last two decades. Smallman guides us through the book, shows the tricky research approach Burges had to do, and proves its value within its historiography. And as Smallman persuasively writes of Brazil’s economic discipline and political surprises, he also explains how the book’s limitations are as important as its strengths. This book, Smallman argues, is both accessible and a required reading for all advanced students, but even policymaking and those casually interested in Brazilian affairs should consider reading it.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31664
Elaine Carey (St. Johns University) reviews the third book in this group, a work that has received significant attention even outside of scholarly circles. Carey tells us how Paul Gootenberg’s _Andean Cocaine_ is not your ordinary story of the miracle drug. It is rather a compelling account produced by a first-rate, multi-archival research. Gootenberg wrote a nuanced account of a currently controversial commodity chain (with all of its emotional baggage) as a product of a historical development. By observing how the plant became a national hope, then a medicine and next a narcotic (vice), we grasp a deeper understanding of not simply individual struggles, but of the particular nature of this epoch’s political economy. As Carey reminds us, there is a difference between coca and cocaine, and if we are able to distinguish these words’ historical contexts, we may come out of this reading a bit more enlightened. Carey’s review is an excellent introduction to the book, which she shows to be relevant to the entire hemisphere’s history.
http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32733
I offer my sincere thanks to the reviewers and to the editorial team behind H-LatAm’s review project.
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