History / Latin America / South America

During the wars for independence in Spanish South America (1808-1826), thousands of slaves enlisted under the promise of personal freedom and, in some cases, freedom for other family members. Blacks were recruited by opposing sides in these conflicts and their loyalties rested with whomever they believed would emerge victorious. The prospect of freedom was worth risking one’s life for, and wars against Spain presented unprecedented opportunities to attain it. Blanchard’s study investigates the issue of slavery from the perspectives of Royalists, patriots, and slaves. He examines the wartime political, ideological, and social dynamics that led to slave recruitment, and the subsequent repercussions in the immediate postindependence era. Under the Flags of Freedom sheds new light on the vital contribution of slaves to the wars for Latin American independence.

Intersecting Tango engages Buenos Aires during the sweeping changes of 1900-1930, to capture a culture in motion through which Buenos Aires transformed itself into a modern, cosmopolitan city. Taking the reader through a dazzling array of sites, sources, and events, Bergero conveys the city in all its complexity. Drawing on architecture and gendered spaces, photography, newspaper columns, schoolbooks, “high” and “low” literature, private letters, advertising, fashion, and popular music, she illuminates a range of urban social geographies inhabited by the city’s defining classes and groups. In mining this vast material, Bergero traces the profound change in social fabric by which these diverse identities evolved, through the processes of modernization and its many dislocations, into a new national identity capable of embodying modernity.

Traces the production of nationalist imaginaries through the public visual representation of modern state formation in Brazil and Argentina. The purpose of these imaginaries was to vindicate political upheavals and secure the viability of the newly independent states through a sense of historic destiny and inevitable evolution. The visions of national heritage, territory, and social and ethnic composition were conceived in a complex interplay between government, cultural and scientific institutions, as a means of propagating political agendas and power throughout the emerging states.

Myths of Harmony examines a foundational moment for Latin American racial constructs. While most contemporary scholarship has focused the explanation for racial tolerance in the colonial period, Marixa Lasso argues that the origins of modern race relations are to be found later, in the Age of Revolution. Lasso’s work brings much-needed attention to the important role of the anticolonial struggles in shaping the nature of contemporary race relations and racial identities in Latin America.

Examines Alberto Fujimori’s corrupt presidency, and the thin line between democracy and dictatorship, demonstrating how closely they can resemble one another. Analyzes how public institutions can empower dictators and also bring them down.

The Practice of Politics in Postcolonial Brazil traces the history of high and low politics in nineteenth-centiry Brazil from the vantage point of the provincial capitol of Porto Alegre. Kittleson investigates the ways in which lower classes in this area manipulated emerging ideologies to secure limited political inclusion that was unavailable elsewhere.

Tracing the development of Peru’s first modern political party, the Partido Civil, Ulrich Muecke touches on virtually every aspect of 19th-century society in that country in this illuminating work.

Mestizaje refers to the process of cultural, ethnic, and racial mixture that is part of cultural identity in Latin America. Through a careful study of fiction, political essays, and visual art, this book defines the meaning of mestizaje in the context of the emergence of a modern national and artistic identity in late-19th- and early 20th-century Bolivia.

This volume represents the first comprehensive examination of the persistent political challenges facing Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Venezuela.

Nancy Powers addresses fundamental questions about the interaction of politics and economics, and how ordinary people think about their standard of living and their government. Her book narrows the gaps in the existing scholarship on economic voting, social movements, and populism, and works to untangle the field’s inherent contradictions.

Kenneth Serbin uncovers the existence of secret talks between generals and Roman Catholic bishops at the height of Brazil’s military dictatorship. It illuminates the complicity of the Catholic Church in the military’s subversive PR campaigns, abductions, and torturings.

This is the first work in English to discuss the social and political history of lawyers in a Latin American country. By exploring the lives of lawyers, Uribe-Uran is also able to focus on a general history of Latin America, while exploring key social and political changes and continuities from 1780 to 1850.

Based on interviews with more than 100 participants, Van Cott demonstrates how social issues were placed on the constitutional reform agenda and transformed into the nation’s highest law. She follows each reform for five years to assess early results of what she calls an emerging model of multicultural constitutionalism.

The Two-Headed Household is an ethnographic account of gender relations and intrahousehold decisionmaking as well as a policy-oriented study of gender and development in the indigenous Andean community of Chanchalo, Ecuador. Sarah Hamilton argues that, contrary to common belief, men and women participate equally in agricultural production and management, in household decisionmaking, and share in the reproductive tasks of child care, food preparation, and other chores.

Offers an unparalleled longitudinal view of how the urban poor of Lima viewed themselves and organized to acquire basic goods and services. Grounding research on theoretical notions from Albert Hirschman and an analytical framework from Verba and Nie, Dietz produces findings that hold great interest for comparativists and students of political behavior in general.