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Cambridge Latin American Studies book cover 1
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Cambridge Latin American Studies
Series · 20
books · 1949-2017

Books in series

Conflicts and Conspiracies book cover
#16

Conflicts and Conspiracies

Brazil and Portugal, 1750-1808

1973

A study of Brazil during a critical formative period which illuminates the causes of her special historical development within Latin America. Professor Maxwell analyzes the shifting relationships between Portugal, England and Brazil during the second half of the 18th Century. Through his study, Professor Maxwell is concerned with the social, economic and political significance of the events he describes. An important part of this work is a study of the Minas Conspiracy of 1788-89.
Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth Century Cuba book cover
#17

Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth Century Cuba

A Study of Racial Attitudes and Sexual Values in a Slave Society

1974

Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba challenges conventional ideas about the roots of Cuban race relations. Verena Martinez-Alier proposes a relational model for the study of sexual values and social inequality. She deals with Cuban notions of honor and virtue while describing complex interconnections between class and perceived racial status that determine the choice of sexual and marriage partners. First published in 1974, Marriage, Class and Colour in Nineteenth-Century Cuba is now a classic, a pathbreaking encounter of anthropology with history that points the way for future investigations. With this edition, the work of this pioneering scholar is made available again, with a new introduction by the author. —from the back cover
Politics in Argentina, 1890-1930 book cover
#19

Politics in Argentina, 1890-1930

The Rise and Fall of Radicalism

1975

This study is concerned with the forty-year period before 1930, when Argentina experienced rapid economic and social growth broken only by the First World War. The Radical Civic Union appeared in the 1912 elections and in 1916 its leader, Hipolito Yrigoyen, became President. Dr Rock discusses the origins and course of this experiment in representative government, and the distribution of power and political benefits under the new system in the light of the society created by the growth of the primary export how it came about that the established political elite ceded control to the Radicals; whom they represented and towards which groups they directed their attentions. The work also deals with the methods of organization and mobilization used by them in a complex urban environment to develop and uphold their political support. It examines in some detail the class conflicts of the wartime period, the strikes whereby the workers sought to guard against the erosion of their wages by inflation, and the counter-mobilization of elite and middle-class groups, most notably in the bloody 'Tragic Week' of 1919.
Letters and People of the Spanish Indies book cover
#22

Letters and People of the Spanish Indies

Sixteenth Century

1976

This 1976 book consists of the public and private letters of merchants which present a lively panorama of early life in Spanish-American society.
The Cristero Rebellion book cover
#24

The Cristero Rebellion

The Mexican People Between Church and State 1926-1929

1976

The Cristero movement is an essential part of the Mexican Revolution. When in 1926 relations between Church and state, old enemies and old partners, eventually broke down, when the churches closed and the liturgy was suspended, Rome, Washington and Mexico, without ever losing their heads, embarked upon a long game of chess. These years were crucial, because they saw the setting up of the contemporary political system. The state established its omnipotence, supported by a bureaucratic apparatus and a strong privileged class. Just at the moment when the state thought that it was finally supreme, at the moment at which it decided to take control of the Church, the Cristero movement arose, a spontaneous mass movement, particularly of peasants, unique in its spread, its duration, and its popular character. For obvious reasons, the existing literature has both denied its reality and slandered it.
Coronelismo book cover
#28

Coronelismo

The Municipality and Representative Government in Brazil

1949

Since its first appearance in Brazil in 1949, Victor Nunes Leal's Coronelismo, Enxada e Voto, here entitled Coronelismo: the Municipality and Representative Government in Brazil, has come to be recognized as a classic analysis of the system that emerges from 'the superimposition of structural forms evolved through the representative process on an inadequate social and economic structure'. The text is here published without any substantial change or addition, according to the author's wish. His insights and approach remain as suggestive as when they first appeared; as Barbosa Lima Sobrinho pointed out in the preface to the second Brazilian edition, the work is not only the analysis of a structure, but the record of that structure and of the arguments about it at a certain time, a record important in itself. Its place in the development of political analysis in Brazil is set out in Alberto Venancio Filho's introduction: 'a divide in the history of political science in Brazil... the first landmark of the study of politics in our Universities'. The work is recognized everywhere as an essential text for the student of that country.
From Dessalines to Duvalier book cover
#34

From Dessalines to Duvalier

Race, Colour and National Independence in Haiti

1979

In this lively, provocative, and well-documented history, David Nicholls discusses the impact of "color" on the political relationship between the black majority and the mulatto elite during almost two hundred years of Haitian history. The divisive factor impeding harmony in Haitian culture, argues Nicholls, has not been race, but color. Identifying themselves as non-white, blacks and mulattos acknowledge racial unity. But color divisions, reinforced by religious, regional, and class differences, have nonetheless prevented the two groups from achieving poltitical and ideological unity. Nicholls grounds this sophisticated analysis in great historical detail and engaging, witty prose. Students and general readers alike will delight in this insightful and informative history of Haiti.
Early Latin America book cover
#46

Early Latin America

A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil

1983

A brief general history of Latin America in the period between the European conquest and the independence of the Spanish American countries and Brazil serves as an introduction to this quickly changing field of study. Cambridge Latin American Studies #46
Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society book cover
#52

Sugar Plantations in the Formation of Brazilian Society

Bahia, 1550-1835

1985

This study examines the history of the sugar economy and the peculiar development of plantation society over a three hundred year period in Bahia, a major sugar plantation zone and an important terminus of the Atlantic slave trade. Drawing on little-used archival sources, plantations accounts, and notarial records, Professor Schwartz has examined through both quantitative and qualitative methods the various groups that made up plantation society. While he devotes much attention to masters and slaves, he views slavery ultimately as part of a larger structure of social and economic relations. The peculiarities of sugar-making and the nature of plantation labour are used throughout the book as keys to an understanding of roles and relationships in plantation society. A comparative perspective is also employed, so that studies of slavery elsewhere in the Americas inform the analysis, while at many points direct comparisons of the Bahian case with other plantation societies are also made.
The Mexican Revolution, Volume 1 book cover
#54

The Mexican Revolution, Volume 1

Porfirians, Liberals, and Peasants

1986

The Mexican Revolution was like no it was fueled by no vanguard party, no coherent ideology, no international ambitions; and ultimately it served to reinforce rather than to subvert many of the features of the old regime it overthrew. Alan Knight argues that a populist uprising brought about the fall of longtime dictator Porfirio Díaz in 1910. It was one of those "relatively rare episodes in history when the mass of the people profoundly influenced events." In this first of two volumes Knight shows how urban liberals joined in uneasy alliance with agrarian interests to install Francisco Madero as president and how his attempts to bring constitutional democracy to Mexico were doomed by counter-revolutionary forces. The Mexican Revolution illuminates on all levels, local and national, the complex history of an era. Rejecting fashionable Marxist and revisionist interpretations, it comes as close as any work can to being definitive.
The Mexican Revolution, Volume 2 book cover
#55

The Mexican Revolution, Volume 2

Counter-revolution and Reconstruction

1986

Volume 2 of The Mexican Revolution begins with the army counter-revolution of 1913, which ended Francisco Madero's liberal experiment and installed Victoriano Huerta's military rule. After the overthrow of the brutal Huerta, Venustiano Carranza came to the forefront, but his provisional government was opposed by Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, who come powefully to life in Alan Knight's book. Knight offers a fresh interpretation of the great schism of 1914-15, which divided the revolution in its moment of victory, and which led to the final bout of civil war between the forces of Villa and Carranza. By the end of this brilliant study of a popular uprising that deteriorated into political self-seeking and vengeance, nearly all the leading players have been assassinated. In the closing pages, Alan Knight ponders the essential what had the revolution changed? His two-volume history, at once dramatic and scrupulously documented, goes against the grain of traditional assessments of the "last great revolution."
Ambivalent Conquests book cover
#61

Ambivalent Conquests

Maya & Spaniard in Yucatan 1517-70

1987

s/t: Maya & Spaniard in Yucatan 1517-1570 In what is both a specific study of conversion in a corner of the Spanish Empire and a work with implications for the understanding of European domination and native resistance throughout the colonial world, Inga Clendinnen explores the intensifying conflict between competing and increasingly divergent Spanish visions of Yucatan and its destructive outcomes. In Ambivalent Conquests Clendinnen penetrates the thinking and feeling of the Mayan Indians in a detailed reconstruction of their assessment of the intruders. This new edition contains a preface by the author where she reflects upon the book's contribution in the past fifteen years. Inga Clendinnen is Emeritus scholar, LaTrobe University, Australia. Her books include the acclaimed Reading the Holocaust (Cambridge, 1999), named a Best Book of the Year by the New York Times Book Review, and Aztec: An Interpretation (Cambridge, 1995), and Tiger's Eye: A Memoir (Scribner, 2001).
Resistance and Integration book cover
#64

Resistance and Integration

Peronism and the Argentine Working Class, 1946-1976

1988

This book analyzes the relationship between Peronism and the Argentine working class from the foundation of the Peronist movement in the mid 1940s to the overthrow of Peron's widow in 1976. It presents an account of such crucial issues as the role of the Peronist union bureaucracy and the impact of the Peronist ideology on workers. Drawing on a variety of untapped sources, Daniel James confronts many of the dominant myths that have surrounded the movement. He argues that its role in containing working-class militancy cannot be explained solely in terms of manipulation, corruption, or union gangsterism.
House and Street book cover
#68

House and Street

The Domestic World of Servants and Masters in Nineteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro

1988

During the later half of the nineteenth century, a majority of Brazilian women worked, most as domestic servants, either slave or free. House and Street re-creates the working and personal lives of these women, drawing on a wealth of documentation from archival, court, and church records. Lauderdale Graham traces the intricate and ambivalent relations that existed between masters and servants. She shows how for servants the house could be a place of protection—as well as oppression—while the street could be dangerous—but also more autonomous. She integrates her discoveries with larger events taking place in Rio de Janeiro during the period, including the epidemics of the 1850s, the abolition of slavery, the demolition of slums, and major improvements in sanitation during the first decade of the 1900s.
The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence book cover
#77

The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence

1995

This book covers the economic history of Latin America from independence in the 1820s to the present. It stresses the differences between Latin American countries while recognizing the similar external influences to which the region has been subject. Victor Bulmer-Thomas notes the failure of the region to close the gap in living standards between it and the United States and explores the reasons. He also examines the new paradigm taking shape in Latin America since the debt crisis of the 1980s and asks whether this new economic model will be able to bring the growth and equity that the region desperately needs. First Edition Hb (1995): 0-521-36329-2 First Edition Pb (1995): 0-521-36872-3
A History of Chile, 1808-2002 book cover
#82

A History of Chile, 1808-2002

1996

Providing an overview of Chilean history for the general reader as well as the specialist, this text employs primary and secondary materials to analyze the nation's political, economic, and social evolution from independence to 2002. Unlike other works, the volume examines in depth the most recent events of Chile's history: the diversification of its economy, spread of democratic institutions, improvement of public health, and emergence of a rich intellectual culture. First Edition Hb (1996): 0-521-56075-6 First Edition Pb (1996): 0-521-56827-7
Andrés Bello book cover
#87

Andrés Bello

Scholarship and Nation-Building in Nineteenth-Century Latin America

2001

This is the first book-length biography of Andrés Bello, the nineteenth-century Latin American intellectual, to appear in English. Bello was also a poet, a literary critic, and an influential statesman whose contributions to nation-building and Spanish American identity are widely recognized across the region. This work provides a comprehensive interpretation of Bello's work, gives an account of Bello's life based on new information from archives in four countries, and sheds new light on this critical period in Latin American history.
Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico book cover
#100

Asian Slaves in Colonial Mexico

From Chinos to Indians

2014

During the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, countless slaves from culturally diverse communities in the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia journeyed to Mexico on the ships of the Manila Galleon. Upon arrival in Mexico, they were grouped together and categorized as chinos. Their experience illustrates the interconnectedness of Spain's colonies and the reach of the crown, which brought people together from Africa, the Americas, Asia and Europe in a historically unprecedented way. In time, chinos in Mexico came to be treated under the law as Indians, becoming indigenous vassals of the Spanish crown after 1672. The implications of this legal change were enormous: as Indians, rather than chinos, they could no longer be held as slaves. Tatiana Seijas tracks chinos' complex journey from the slave market in Manila to the streets of Mexico City, and from bondage to liberty. In doing so, she challenges commonly held assumptions about the uniformity of the slave experience in the Americas.
Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution book cover
#102

Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution

Reform, Revolution, and Royalism in the Northern Andes, 1780–1825

2016

Royalist Indians and slaves in the northern Andes engaged with the ideas of the Age of Revolution (1780-1825), such as citizenship and freedom. Although generally ignored in recent revolution-centered versions of the Latin American independence processes, their story is an essential part of the history of the period. In Indian and Slave Royalists in the Age of Revolution, Marcela Echeverri draws a picture of the royalist region of Popayan (modern-day Colombia) that reveals deep chronological layers and multiple social and spatial textures. She uses royalism as a lens to rethink the temporal, spatial, and conceptual boundaries that conventionally structure historical narratives about the Age of Revolution. Looking at royalism and liberal reform in the northern Andes, she suggests that profound changes took place within the royalist territories. These emerged as a result of the negotiation of the rights of local people, Indians and slaves, with the changing monarchical regime.
Before Mestizaje book cover
#105

Before Mestizaje

The Frontiers of Race and Caste in Colonial Mexico

2017

This book opens new dimensions on race in Latin America by examining the extreme caste groups of colonial Mexico. In tracing their experiences, a broader understanding of the connection between mestizaje (Latin America's modern ideology of racial mixture) and the colonial caste system is rendered. Before mestizaje emerged as a primary concept in Latin America, an earlier precursor existed that must be taken seriously. This colonial form of racial hybridity, encased in an elastic caste system, allowed some people to live through multiple racial lives. Hence, the great fusion of races that swept Latin America and defined its modernity, carries an important corollary. Mestizaje, when viewed at its roots, is not just about mixture, but also about dissecting and reconnecting lives. Such experiences may have carved a special ability for some Latin American populations to reach across racial groups to relate with and understand multiple racial perspectives. This overlooked, deep history of mestizaje is a legacy that can be built upon in modern times.

Authors

Stuart B. Schwartz
Author · 10 books

Stuart B. Schwartz is Professor of History at Yale University and the former Master of Ezra Stiles College. He studied at Middlebury College, where he received his undergraduate degree, and the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico. He then went on to study Latin American History at Columbia University where he received his Ph.D. (1968). He is one of the leading specialists on the History of colonial Latin America, especially Brazil and on the history of Early Modern expansion.

Victor Bulmer-Thomas
Author · 2 books
Victor Bulmer-Thomas is professor emeritus at the University of London, honorary professor of the Institute of the Americas, University College London, and associate fellow in the U.S. and Americas Program, Chatham House, where he was Director from 2001 to 2006.
Inga Clendinnen
Inga Clendinnen
Author · 8 books
Inga Clendinnen, AO, FAHA was an Australian author, historian, anthropologist, and academic.
Kenneth Maxwell
Kenneth Maxwell
Author · 2 books

Kenneth Maxwell was the founding Director of the Brazil Studies Program at Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies (DRCLAS) (2006-2008) and a Professor in Harvard's Department of History (2004-2008). From 1989 to 2004 he was Director of the Latin America Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, and in 1995 became the first holder of the Nelson and David Rockefeller Chair in Inter-American Studies. He served as Vice President and Director of Studies of the Council in 1996. Maxwell previously taught at Yale, Princeton, Columbia, and the University of Kansas. Kenneth Maxwell founded and was Director of the Camões Center for the Portuguese-speaking World at Columbia and was the Program Director of the Tinker Foundation, Inc. From 1993 to 2004, he was the Western Hemisphere book reviewer for Foreign Affairs. He is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and was a weekly columnist between 2007 and 2015 for Folha de São Paulo and monthly columnist for O Globo from 2015. Maxwell was the Herodotus Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and a Guggenheim Fellow. He served on the Board of Directors of The Tinker Foundation, Inc., and the Consultative Council of the Luso-American Foundation. He is also a member of the Advisory Boards of the Brazil Foundation and Human Rights Watch/Americas. Maxwell received his B.A. and M.A. from St. John's College, Cambridge University, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University.

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