ms55896, Author at Not Even Past

Quilombo dos Palmares: Brazil’s Lost Nation of Fugitive Slaves, by Glenn Cheney (2014)

In November 1695, townspeople in Recife, Brazil, observed Portuguese soldiers attaching a severed head to a stake in the central plaza. The skull belonged to Zumbi, the last warrior-king of Palmares, a “quilombo,” or fugitive slave community, hidden in the rugged backcountry of the Brazilian Northeast. Palmares was home to twenty thousand runaway slaves, free blacks, Indians, and settlers of mixed ancestry who repelled the repeated assaults of European slavers for almost a century. Although the Portuguese managed to defeat Zumbi’s guerrillas, memories of Palmares evolved into myths that powerfully shaped Brazilian politics and popular culture. They fanned the flames of slave resistance and inspired future generations of black activists and intellectuals who challenged racism, capitalism, and military rule in modern times.

Glenn Cheney’s new book, Quilombo dos Palmares: Brazil’s Lost Nation of Fugitive Slaves, retraces the maroon community’s origins and casts new light upon the lived experiences of its diverse inhabitants. Drawing upon a range of colonial documents and secondary sources, Cheney advances a number of compelling claims about the nature of Palmares and its century-long struggle for survival. First, he argues that the quilombo represented a viable alternative to plantation slavery and Portuguese colonialism. Fugitive slaves established a collective economy based upon subsistence agriculture, trade, and communal land ownership. They raided plantations and sugar mills in search of new supplies and recruits. Palmarians rejected Portugal’s rigid caste system and mixed freely with Africans, crioulas (Brazilian born blacks), mulattos, Indians, and even poor whites. The author also suggests that women were socially, economically, and militarily empowered and that marriage and sexual morality were established by “necessity and efficiency” rather than by religious edict. Religion in the quilombo was syncretic, an amalgamation of beliefs and practices pulled together from Bantu (Central African), indigenous, and Catholic traditions.

Second, Cheney contends that Palmares functioned like a sovereign state. He observes that the quilombo was not, at least initially, a single political entity, but rather a collection of mocambos (“hideouts”) that stretched across a territory that was two hundred miles long and fifty miles inland from the coast of what is today the Brazilian state of Alagoas. Ultimately, these communities recognized a common enemy, the Portuguese, and integrated the various mocambos into a unified military brotherhood. Inhabitants elected village leaders to a council and the council selected a head of state. There is also evidence to suggest the Portuguese monarchy had recognized the quilombo’s autonomy and even attempted to broker a truce between planters and maroons in the 1670s.

Painting of a battle at Palmares. Image via Black Women of Brazil.

Cheney concludes that Palmares grew strong enough not only to frustrate, but also to seriously challenge Portuguese control of Brazil. Following the decline of sugar production and the Dutch invasion of Pernambuco, Zumbi and his army of fugitive slaves threatened to deliver a crushing blow to Portugal’s fragile colonial ambitions. Cheney alleges that Palmares signaled the beginning of a long-term movement toward independence from colonial rule and foreshadowed the rise of Toussaint L’Overture and the “Black Jacobins” in Haiti. The Portuguese, though weakened, resolved to destroy the quilombo. Armed with an influx of capital, weaponry, and manpower from Lisbon and São Paulo, colonizers assembled an army of mercenaries, Indians, and slaves that sacked Palmares in 1693 and captured and executed Zumbi two years later.

Bust of Zumbi of Palmares in Brasilia. Via Wikimedia Commons.

However, the destruction of Palmares failed to stem the emergence of hundreds, perhaps thousands of smaller quilombos throughout Brazil. Nor did it prevent countless other acts of resistance that undermined planter domination even after the abolition of slavery in 1888. Cheney describes how the legend of the Quilombo dos Palmares inspired a 1988 constitutional amendment that extended land rights to the descendants of fugitive slaves. Thousands of “modern quilombos” have petitioned for government recognition while organizing mass movement in the countryside that has won concessions from local landowners and pressured elected officials to implement affirmative action policies in other areas. In 2015, the specter of Palmares looms large over Brazil.

Capoeira or the Dance of War by Johann Moritz Rugendas (1825). The Brazilian dance of Capoeria is often associated with the Palmares quilombo. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Cheney’s new book claims many strengths but its effort to separate “myth” from “fact” represents its greatest achievement. Portuguese colonizers sought not only to destroy Palmares but also to expunge its existence from the historical record for fear that it would incite future slave rebellions. As a result, no artifactual evidence of the quilombo exists while surviving documentation reports precious little about Palmares, its people, and their points of view. Cheney nevertheless manages to shed light on Palmarians’ lived experiences by extrapolating meaning from among the colonizers’ exaggerations, inconsistencies, and omissions. By combining gripping narrative with first-rate scholarship, Cheney provides the most accessible and comprehensive study in English about “the most important historical event ever ignored by the world outside of Brazil.”

Glenn Alan Cheney, Quilombo dos Palmares: Brazil’s Lost Nation of Fugitive Slaves (New London Librarium, 2014)

You may also like:

Eyal Weinberg on a new English translation of Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis’ short stories

Seth Garfield on his book In search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States and the nature of a Region

Elizabeth O’Brien on labor history in the sugar industry in Brazil

Eyal Weinberg on labor history in Sao Paulo

Darcy Rendón on the social history of the lottery in Brazil

Confederados: The Texans of Brazil

By Nakia Parker

After the American Civil War ended in April 1865, white Southerners living in the defeated Confederacy faced an uncertain social, economic, and political future. Many, disappointed in the outcome of the conflict and fearful of vengeful reprisals from the victorious Union government, decided to leave the United States altogether and start afresh in a foreign land. Central and South America, in particular, seemed a safe and welcoming haven for ex-Confederates living in the Gulf South region of Alabama, Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The overwhelming choice of destination for these discontented emigrants was Brazil, where slavery was still legal and the Emperor offered attractive economic incentives, such as inexpensive land ownership and favorable tax laws. These expatriates, possibly numbering into the thousands, became known as “Confederados,” the Portuguese word for “Confederates.” However, not everyone living in the recently vanquished Confederate States of America was keen on the idea of beginning a new life in Brazil. An editorial written on the August 25, 1865 in the Houston Tri-Weekly Telegraph meticulously weighs the advantages and disadvantages of the Brazilian emigration movement.

Transcription of the editorial that appeared in the Houston Telegraph

The first Americans residing in Brazil, 1867. Via Wikimedia Commons. — The first Americans residing in Brazil, 1867.

In an attempt to “look at the question fairly,” the editorial highlighted similarities between Texas, the South in general, and Brazil, such as their comparable climates and agricultural production. Yet, the parallels abruptly stop there. The writer of the piece employed common racial stereotypes of the day, claiming that while both Brazil and the U.S. South each had “plenty of free negroes,” people of Afro-Brazilian descent were “of a much lower order of intelligence than ours,” yet enjoyed “social equality.” Even more interesting is the emphasis on the commonalities between Black and White Southerners — their shared religion, language, and “familial” ties — ignoring the devastating, bloody conflict over slavery that just ended a mere few months prior.

Thus, the seedlings of the “Lost Cause” mythology of paternalistic slave owners and happy slaves as a part of their extended family reveals itself in the article’s description of Southern African-Americans. Furthermore, the document vacillates from the practical to the poignant, imploring readers to consider such factors as the financial costs of making an overseas move, the health risks of resettling in an unfamiliar land, the repercussions of moving to a country with a different political and religious infrastructure, along with the emotional and psychic wages of leaving behind beloved friends, family, and an established way of life, no matter how “shaken,” for unsure prospects. The author resolutely came to the conclusion: “No Brazil for us. The “land of the South, imperial land is still for us our home and grave. We hope to go to heaven from it.”

House of the first confederate family in Americana, Brazil. Image via Wikimedia Commons. — House of the first confederate family in Americana, Brazil.

Despite the objections of the unknown writer, many Texans did leave for Brazil. Today, many of their descendants honor their American South/Brazilian lineage with a festival known as the Festa Confederada. This annual celebration combines Brazilian culture, such as dances and music, with traditional “Southern” foods, Confederate uniforms, antebellum dresses, and the waving of Confederate flags. This proud, yet problematic, commemoration highlights the powerful hold that the Civil War exercises not just in the American South, but in the “global South” as well.

In 1972, Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter visited Brazil and remarked on the similarity between American Southerners and Confederados, descendants of Confederates who emigrated to Brazil after the Civil War. Via Wikimedia Commons. — In 1972, Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter visited Brazil and remarked on the similarity between American Southerners and Confederados, descendants of Confederates who emigrated to Brazil after the Civil War.

More amazing finds at the Briscoe Center:

A Texas Ranger and the Letter of the Law

“The Die is Cast”: Early Texans Face the Comanches

Standard Oil writes a “history” of the old south

Stephen F. Austin visits a New Orleans bookstore

All images via Wikimedia Commons.

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Ex Cathedra: Stories by Machado de Assis: Bilingual edition (2014)

By Eyal Weinberg

On both of my recent research trips to Rio de Janeiro I stayed on Machado de Assis Street, in the neighborhood of Flamengo. Every Tuesday, the sounds of vendors setting up their stalls in front of my window for the weekly fruit and vegetable market would wake me up at 6 am. After lengthy and unsuccessful attempts to go back to sleep, I would reluctantly get up and go out for a morning stroll in the market, already crowded by this hour. Machado de Assis never lived in the street now bearing his name (though he did live close by for several years, on Catete street), but I still imagined him having his cafezinho at the corner, observing the bustling commercial activity of a traditional market in a fast-growing, urban metropolis, and considering his next work. Reading Ex Cathedra, a new translation of some twenty-one short stories written by Machado, was a great opportunity not only to discover lesser-known works of the great Brazilian author, but also to recall that repeated annoying, yet joyful morning experience.

The Market on Machado de Assis Street. Photo courtesy of Eyal Weinberg

Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis was born in 1839 to a son of freed slaves who worked as a house painter and a Portuguese washerwoman from the Azores who died before he turned 13. He was raised by a stepmother who worked as a maid. Despite his unprivileged social and racial background—slavery was legal in Brazil until 1888—Machado managed to break from hierarchical determinism. Already as a teenager he was a keen learner. A local priest taught him Latin; a baker introduced French, and he later taught himself other modern and ancient languages. As a typographer’s apprentice, Machado studied the printing business and, later working as a proofreader and salesman at a bookstore, he was able not only to read the classics but also to meet some of Rio de Janeiro’s eminent authors. Although he never left Rio, Machado’s cultural and literary understanding was deeply rooted in world literature and the intellectual discourse of the period.

Marchado de Assis at 57 years old, via Wikimedia Commons

His first successful poems and short stories appeared in periodicals and illustrated magazines aimed at Rio’s rising middle class, attracting young socialites (particularly women) with themes of sexual desire and leisure time. Yet if this first phase of writing was romantic and humorous, Machado’s later works were pessimistic, melancholic, and disillusioned, presenting a much more cynical view of Brazilian society. Some critics highlight the physical and psychological breakdown Machado suffered in 1878—developing epilepsy and a speech disorder as well as confronting his deprived socio-racial position—to explain the shift in the author’s literary production. Others reject this interpretation, pointing to continuity in the developments of his literary technique and aesthetics.

Whatever the cause, after 1880 Machado’s works portray a somber look at society, dealing with death, insanity, gossip, hypocrisy, greed, and anxiety. The most well known is Epitaph of a Small Winner (Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas, 1880), a fictional autobiography of a dead hero, telling his life story from his grave. These works also brought fame. Critics praised Machado work and the Emperor of Brazil, Dom Pedro II, awarded him the Order of the Rose. In 1896, Machado was a founding member of the Brazilian Academy of Letters, serving as its first president until his death in 1908.

The twenty-one stories collected in Ex Cathedra—all originally published after 1880—beautifully represent this later phase. They take us on a journey to late nineteenth-century Brazil, mixing the mundane with the unique and sometimes hallucinatory human experience, as rightfully pointed out in the introduction. In one story, we follow a man’s relentless but unsuccessful attempts to get a loan for his entrepreneurial fantasies. In another, we witness the anxieties of an adoptive father afraid to lose his adolescent daughter when she marries. We find ourselves listening to a delirious dialogue between a member of Rio’s elite and a historic figure from ancient Greece about fashion and modernity. Or we observe the well-crafted plan of an elderly avid reader to make his goddaughter and niece fall in love.

Machado’s vignettes, with their mix of the everyday and the surreal, also shed historical light on the transitions Brazilians underwent at the turn of the century and their attempts to deal with those rapid changes. When Machado de Assis was born, Brazil was a rather stable monarchical empire, slavery was legal, and the economy was based mainly on agriculture exports such as sugar and cacao. When publishing the stories gathered in Ex Cathedra, however, both the empire and slavery system were on the verge of collapse or already gone: slavery was abolished in 1888 and monarchy in 1889. Thousands of newly constructed railroad lines introduced the first signs of industrial development and government-organized European immigration aimed to expand the labor force, whiten population, and “modernized” society. The dialogues and arguments among Machado’s characters testify to these shifts, and the author makes an effort to ridicule the difficulties of adjusting to modern developments, expressing the characters’, and perhaps his fear of the uncertain future of the new republic and its promise of “order and progress.”

Images documenting historical change in nineteenth century Rio:

Rue Droite in Rio by German painter Johann Moritz Rugendas, cerca 1830.

Photo of Rio de Janeiro in 1850, courtesy of Instituto de Cultura de Cidadania.

Photo of Rio de Janeiro, 1889. Via Wikimedia Commons.

Ex Cathedra is an important addition to Machado de Assis’s corpus of English translations. It brings together stories published during the author’s most productive and mature period (1880-1906), some of them appearing for the first time in English. The translations are uneven at times and some stories would have benefitted from better editing. Translating Machado de Assis, however, is not an easy job. Characters frequently use both formal and common registers, and the tone can quickly shift from playful to serious. As this is a bilingual edition, scholars can compare the original with the translation. Yet this collection is certainly not only for the bilingual researcher. English speakers will enjoy the captivating stories, and will find a brief glossary at the end to clarify Portuguese words used in translated text.

Ex Cathedra: Stories by Machado de Assis: Bilingual Edition, edited by Glenn Alan Cheney, Luciana Tanure, Rachel Kopit (New London Librarium, 2014)

Translations by: Laura Cade Brown, Krista Brune, Glenn Alan Cheney David George, Linda Ledford-Miller, Ana Lessa-Schmidt, Nelson López Rojas, John Maddox, Adam Morris, Rex P. Nielson, Leila Osman, Marissel Hernández Romero, Steven K. Smith, Lisandra Sousa, Luciana Tanure, Nelson Vieira

You may also like:

Seth Garfield on his book In search of the Amazon: Brazil, the United States and the nature of a Region

Elizabeth O’Brien on labor history in the sugar industry in Brazil

Eyal Weinberg on labor history in Sao Paulo

Darcy Rendón on the social history of the lottery in Brazil

The Future of Cuba-Texas Relations

By Jonathan C. Brown

Jonathan Brown teaches courses on the history of Latin American revolutions. He is now completing a manuscript on “How the Cuban Revolution Changed the World.” Professor Brown took the first of his four trips to Cuba in 2006. On the very day that the government announced President Fidel Castro’s incapacitating illness (August 1), Brown was touring the prison cum-museum where Fidel and Raúl Castro spent two years as political prisoners. Brown heard the news of the leadership change from the museum guide herself at the moment she was showing him the prison beds these two revolutionaries occupied in 1954. What a memorable moment for an historian!Since then, Professor Brown has busied himself negotiating the exchange agreement between the University of Texas and the Universidad de La Habana, organizing two UT conferences on Cuba, bringing three Cuban scholars to campus as visiting professors, reading thousands of documents on U.S.-Cuba relations, and delivering dozens of talks and papers on his research. Here are his thoughts on the implications for Texas-Cuba connections.

Within a week of President Barack Obama’s announcement about the renewal of diplomatic relations with Cuba, the Austin American Statesman ran a cartoon entitled “America Prepares to Invade Cuba.” It depicted a line of passengers dressed in beach wear boarding a plane heading to Havana.

The skyline of Havana has scarcely changed since 1959. The building below left is the Hotel Nacional, built in the 1920s. Photo by Reggie Wallesen. — The skyline of Havana has scarcely changed since 1959. The building below left is the Hotel Nacional, built in the 1920s.

Perhaps the cartoonist exaggerated, for President Obama merely loosened existing restrictions. Cuban Americans may travel to the island several times per year and send more money to relatives there. Non-Cuban Americans may travel there more freely, although special licenses are still required. The U.S. government will allow Americans to use their credit and debit cards in Cuba. The president may have cut the Gordian Knot ending 54 years of mutual hostility and eliminating one of the last vestiges of the Cold War. But he did not sever it completely.

Likely presidential candidate Jeb Bush has already stated that, if elected, he would reinstate travel restrictions. With two conservative Cuban Americans also likely to run for the presidency, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, the Cuban Embargo will remain a lively issue of debate. By the way, Jeb Bush holds a BA in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas at Austin.

The Cold War between Washington and Havana will not end until Congress says it’s over. That may not happen any time soon. Many Senators and Congressmen from Texas oppose the repeal of three pieces of “Cuban boycott” legislation dating from 1963, 1992, and 1996. Together these laws restrict travel, trade, and investment.

What changes may we expect in Texas-Cuba relations in the near term? More Texans will visit Cuba, not technically as tourists but in “cultural” exchanges. Students too. Literature professor César Salgado already is planning to take UT students on a Maymester trip to Cuba at the end of the spring semester.

President Obama’s announcement has ended restrictions on the use of U.S. credit and debit cards in Cuba—a positive boon that will enable Texans to compete for hotel rooms and rental cars on a par with travelers from Mexico and Canada. United and American Airlines are contemplating direct flights to Cuba from Houston and Dallas. For now, we Texans have to go through special charter flights from Miami International Airport. Of course, there are illegal alternatives that I do not recommend.

The Cuban and Texas flags flying together during a pleasure ride outside of Havana. This event (minus the Texas flag) made page 3 of the NY Times on November 12, 2007.

Will U.S. recognition encourage Cuban politics to become more democratic? Cuban leaders will say they have already established democracy. The Revolution assures equality for all and no citizen lacks for health care, education, and basic subsistance. Socialism, they say, has no room for the privileged and wealthy “one percent.” President Raúl Castro told the Cuban people that U.S. diplomatic recognition will not make the Communist Party give up power. He will hold power until 2018, when most of this year’s freshmen class will graduate from UT-Austin.

Where is Fidel Castro? He’s retired. Fidel never recovered fully from his 2006 operation for an intestinal blockage, and he has not appeared in public for many months. Raúl Castro is his brother.

Would Cuban political continuity be a good thing? Yes and no. Political stability will preserve the integrity of the Revolutionary Police and Armed Forces. Gang warfare, drug trafficking, and blatant corruption do not plague the Cubans as they do citizens of other Latin American countries. Even though many neighborhoods are blighted for the lack of building materials, Americans should feel safe wandering through Cuban cities. For example, personal safety in Havana compares favorably to Chicago, where the mayor’s son got mugged last month. Political continuity also has a downside. As in China, more engagement with the United States will not make the Cuban government any more tolerant of political protest. Dissidents will continue to face intimidation, prison terms, and deportation. At the very least, diplomatic engagement should remove Washington’s hostility as an excuse for suppressing domestic protesters.

Will Texas benefit economically from the loosening of restrictions? Very definitely, yes. Texans already sell agricultural products to Cuba through a “humanitarian” exclusionary clause in the embargo. American suppliers may send food and pharmaceuticals if the Cuban government pays for them before shipment. The arrangement is cumbersome.

A family stops by a booth at the Havana trade fair in 2008.

For several years, the Texas-Cuba Trade Association, of which I am a volunteer consultant, has lobbied Washington to remove U.S. export limitations. President Obama accomplished as much as he could and Texas producers expect Cuban trade to expand. One Texas A & M economist predicts that our state’s exports to Cuba of chicken, pork, rice, beans, wheat, and corn could top $400 million within a couple of years.

Has the U.S. economic boycott really kept Cuba poor, as its leaders often claim? Only somewhat. Since 1990, when the Soviet subsidies ended, Cuba came to rely on trade and investment from every country of the world except the United States. Still, the Cubans are barely better off than when they lost Moscow’s largesse. Government over-regulation prevents entrepreneurial initiative. I traveled through the countryside last summer and observed little growing in the fields other than invasive spiny bushes called marabú. Cubans have to buy two-thirds of their foodstuffs from abroad.

Rural transport in the Sierra Maestra mountains where Fidel Castro fought as a guerrilla leader.

Will Texas corporations receive repayment for the land and businesses confiscated by the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and 1960? No, they will not. Texas cattlemen as well as Standard Oil (today ExxonMobil of Irving, Texas) had grazing lands and oil refineries seized by revolutionary militias. Today, the Cuban government cannot afford repayment. Yet it will be strong enough to resist any such demands.

Will Cuban-Americans living in Texas be able to reclaim their lost properties? They might try but they will not succeed. Political continuity will reject such claims, and citizens now living in those houses and working those lands will resist as well.

How will loosening restrictions in U.S.-Cuban relations affect revolutionary programs promoting socialist equality? It already has. Since the end of generous Soviet subsidies in 1990, the Castro government promoted more tourism. Needing foreign exchange, Fidel also encouraged relatives abroad to send cash remittances to family members in depressed Cuba. Those Cuban citizens who had relatives abroad suddenly got more money to buy essentials than those who still depended principally on state rationing.

Cuba still maintains a dual monetary system. The state pays its employees in pesos. The hotels, shops, and restaurants operate on convertible dollarized pesos, called the CUC. One CUC equals about 20 pesos. Workers in the tourist industry get tips in CUCs and automatically make more money than state workers, teachers, public health workers, and even physicians. Therefore, income differentials are already disrupting socialist equality.

Will Cuban race relations change with an upsurge of tourism? Some experts say that more than half of Cuba’s eleven million people have some degree of African heritage. Remember that sugar and slaves went together in the Caribbean like cotton and slavery did in Texas. Because sugar grew all over Cuba and cotton only in the Deep South, African influences are much stronger in Cuban society and culture than in the United States. The 1959 Revolution further boosted Afro-Cuban prominence because many middle-class whites chose to flee to Miami.

Two visiting yankis sit in with a Havana street band. The author plays the bongos and on my right, John Parke Wright, a Florida cattleman, riffs on the harmonica. — Two visiting yanquis sit in with a Havana street band. The author plays the bongos and on my right, John Parke Wright, a Florida cattleman, riffs on the harmonica.

Cuban race relations are refreshing and debilitating all at the same time. Today in the streets of Havana, visitors notice how easily persons of diverse racial backgrounds mingle. They work, play, socialize, marry, eat, and live together to a greater extent than in the United States. Fidel Castro boasted that the revolution ended discrimination in Cuba because it eliminated class distinctions. Yet racial prejudice did not end. White males continue to dominate the ruling party and military elites. Moreover, hotel employers apparently believe that European tourists prefer white hostesses and black maids, white waiters and black kitchen workers. More white Cubans live abroad and their remittances go predominately to white relatives in Cuba. The poorest and least healthy Cubans are mainly black.

Cubans lounging on the wall along the famous Malecón, Havana’s seaside boulevard.

Is President Obama correct that United States recognition will benefit the Cuban people? It will not change the government, and economically some will benefit more than others. However, I am convinced that U.S. diplomatic recognition of Cuba will benefit Texans as much as the Cuban people. Those UT students who want to learn about the Cold War in Latin America and about the largest Caribbean island will take advantage of the executive order. So will Texans who cherish the freedom to experience the only capital (Havana) of Latin America that does not have a traffic jam, the only cities of Latin America that still look like they did 50 years ago, and new places to snorkel that are not in Mexico. Believe it or not, Cuba has more live music than Austin.

Cuba’s government is renovating run-down buildings such as this one in the historic Havana Vieja.

Finally, what about those vintage Fords and Chevys? In the near term, they will remain the vehicles of choice in urban transportation. These 1940 and 1950 American models – DeSotos, Imperials, Buicks, Chryslers, Cadillacs, Nash Ramblers, and a Studebaker or two – share the roads with Soviet Ladas of the 1970s and modern Japanese automobiles. Detroit’s old cars have become part of the cultural identity of the country. But sooner or later, whenever commercial restrictions are lifted by Congress, Texas collectors may be able to repatriate many of these old-fashioned gems.

This author’s advice: Get yourself to Cuba before this aspect of the country’s charm disappears.

You may also like:

Jonathan Brown discusses Capitalism After Socialism in Cuba and President Lyndon Johnson’s phone call to Panamanian President Roberto F. Chiari

Blake Scott and Andres Lombana-Bermudez on the Panamanian tourism industry and Blake Scott on Cuban tourism

Photo credits:

First photo by Reggie Wallesen.

Remaining photos courtesy of Jonathan Brown.

Corrected to show that Jeb Bush earned a BA (not an MA as originally stated) in Latin American Studies at UT Austin (January 27, 2015).

Colón 2000: Tour Guides, Cruiseships, and Tourists in Panama

By Andres Lombana-Bermudez and Blake Scott

As Not Even Past consistently shows us, there are so many ways to talk about local history. In that spirit, “Colón 2000” is a short video about the experiences of tour guides, taxi drivers, and other service workers who make their living in the historic city of Colón, Panama. Through interviews and ethnographic filmmaking the video addresses the complicated relationship between the cruise ship industry, international tourism, and local workers. The challenging inequalities and marginalization of the Caribbean city of Colón and its Afro-Antillean population are revealed through the voices and everyday practices of tour guides struggling to find work.

Video Link:

To learn more the project, check out our new website. Soy turismo is a transmedia documentary project that tells the story of Caribbean tourism from a side of paradise not usually visited by tourists. That is, from the perspective of local workers – tour guides, maids, street vendors, musicians, and many other people – who produce tourist experiences for an ever growing number of visitors. As a transmedia project, soy turismo uses diverse media formats, including short videos, essays, maps, audio podcasts, and photographs. During this initial phase of the project, we have focused on a series of short videos that follow the route of a cruise ship from Florida to Panama. The videos introduce viewers to some of the key themes that we will continue to develop over the coming years. Specifically, we look at the paradoxical relationships between the formal and informal tourist economy, the disparate agency of local workers and foreign travelers, and the multiple social, economic and cultural dimensions of the Caribbean vacation. Viewers and readers are introduced to the racial, class, and gendered inequalities that seem to define the boundaries of have and have-not in this increasingly interconnected world. Our hope is to foster an interdisciplinary conversation on the meaning of tourism in the Caribbean today and to raise awareness about the possibilities of developing more sustainable and fair tourism practices.

You may also like:

The NEP blog post about the first video of the documentary film series, I am Tourism/Yo Soy Turismo by Andres Lombana-Bermudez and Blake Scott

To learn about the Panama Canal and its role in Panamanian History:

The Canal Builders: Making America’s Empire at the Panama Canal by Julie Greene
The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective by Walter LaFeber

More documentaries about Panama, the Canal, and Tourism:

Panama Deception, by Barbara Trent
Paraiso for Sale, by Anayansi Prado

You may also like Jonathan Brown’s piece about LBJ’s fascinating conversation with the Panamanian President: A Rare Phone Call from One President to Another

Notes from the Field: The Pope in Manila

This week my attempts to carry out archival research in Manila have been interrupted by Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines.

It is not surprising that the government of the third largest Catholic country in the world would declare the days of the Pope’s visit “Special non-working days” in the national capital. All non-essential government activities (including the national archives) are closed, all school and university classes have been canceled, and many businesses will not open their doors. The enforced holiday is supposed to clear usually congested roads of cars and jeepneys so the Pope and pilgrims move more easily from A to B.

For the outsider, Pope Francis’ visit to the Philippines this week provides interesting insight into the present social, political, and cultural dynamics of this country.

In addition to displaying the committed Catholicism of many Filipinos (over 5 million are expected to attend the public papal mass on Sunday), the papal visit has shed light on some of the tensions that exist between the country’s ruling elite and everyone else.

Dante Hipolito's painting of the Pope's visit, courtesy of The Adobo Chronicles. — Dante Hipolito’s painting of the Pope’s visit, courtesy of The Adobo Chronicles.

This painting by Filipino artist Dante Hipolito went viral on facebook and twitter this week, days ahead of the Pope’s arrival in Manila.

Pope Francis is depicted riding a Carabao-driven cart driven by Vilma Santos, a famous Filipina soapie-star and current Governor of the Batangas Province. Hipolito’s painting includes the hyper-real likenesses of several other famous Filipino politicians and celebrities who smile and wave at the Holy Father, including Senator Grace Poe, Marian Rivera (Film star and singer), Kris Aquino (talk-show host and sister of President Aquino), Coco Martin (actor), and Gary Valenciano (singer).

The artwork has aroused controversy. Journalists have attacked the portrayal of all of these rich and fabulous Filipinos as farm workers, who are counted among the poorest people in the Philippines.

Michael Beltran, the chair of the artists group, Karatula Kabataang Artista para sa Tunay na Kalayaan, said that “The painting… shows nothing about the submerged reality of the nation’s agricultural workers,” and it failed to reflect “the turmoil that many Filipinos experience in their social and economic lives.” Beltran also pointed to the irony of Kris Aquino dressed as a farm worker when she has interests in Hacienda Luisita, the sugar plantation where seven striking farm workers were massacred a decade ago.

But some cultural commentators suggest that the artwork is subversive satire: it mocks the celebrities posed with the Pope.

Instead of uniting the country under the banner of the cross, the papal visit has exposed the divide between politicians, elites, and the Filipino people.

_________________________________________________________________________________________

The views and opinions expressed in this article or video are those of the individual author(s) or presenter(s) and do not necessarily reflect the policy or views of the editors at Not Even Past, the UT Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, or the UT System Board of Regents. Not Even Past is an online public history magazine rather than a peer-reviewed academic journal. While we make efforts to ensure that factual information in articles was obtained from reliable sources, Not Even Past is not responsible for any errors or omissions.

Religion and the Decline of Magic, by Keith Thomas (1971)

By Mark Sheaves

Political and religious discord, disease, famine, fire, and death afflicted the lives of the English population between 1500 and 1700. While alcohol and tobacco provided an escape, Keith Thomas argues that astrology, magic, and religion offered all levels of society a way to make sense of human misfortune. These competing systems of belief shared the ethical assumption that difficulty struck those who deserved it, and thus operated as systems of social control during this period. Religion and the Decline of Magic provides a detailed account of how and why people practiced an eclectic systems of belief in early modern England. The transition from Catholicism to Protestantism, which stripped Christianity of its magical power to provide believers protection from misfortune, he argues, explains the boom in magical beliefs in the early sixteenth century. Yet the widespread use of non-religious magic before the Reformation tempers this conclusion. This balanced study offers explanations and arguments while also acknowledging their weaknesses.

The question of why magic declined but religion endured underpins the book. Thomas points to a fundamental difference in function between religion and magic: religion offered an explanation of human existence while magical practices commonly addressed specific temporary problems. The popularity of the holistic system of astrology, however, which seemed to do both, provides a counterpoint to this distinction. He also demonstrates the malleability of religion. Thomas shows that Christianity shed magical elements, such as a belief in the ability of idols to intervene in human affairs, while developing new theologies that kept up with contemporary intellectual thought and technology. The author also notes the importance of scientific and philosophical revolutions resulting in a widespread belief in natural rather than supernatural laws, which Christian theology successfully integrated with the rise, for example, of natural theology. Technological advances, such as improvements in agriculture, firefighting, and complex mechanisms of banking and insurance, also improved life expectancy and reduced misfortunes. Thomas appears most convinced by the idea that over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries English people developed a belief in their own capacity to help themselves thus rendering the everyday power of magic redundant. He largely relates this self-help philosophy to Protestant theology. However, this diligent scholar demands further research before reaching definite conclusions.

Depiction of the Devil giving magic puppets to witches, from Agnes Sampson trial, 1591. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

While some of the arguments rest on premises now refuted, such as the idea that elite individuals drive changes in our conception of ourselves, the depth of detail and its clear engaging prose makes this book a must for anyone interested in the history of belief in early modern England. The idea that religion maintained importance in English society into the eighteenth century, despite increased emphasis on scientific and rational understandings of the world, significantly challenged previous explanations of the incompatibility between religion and science at the time of publication. This radical conclusion represents the key legacy of this excellent classic work of history.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic, (Scribner, 1971)

Interested in Sixteenth-century England? You may also like these reviews:

Christopher Heaney reviews Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature, by Barbara Fuchs (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013)

Michelle Brock on The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village, by Eamon Duffy (Yale University Press, 2001)

A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920, by Michael McGerr (2003)

By J. Taylor Vurpillat

The upsurge in public awareness of economic inequality since the 2008 financial crisis has refocused attention on the Gilded Age and Progressive Era in American history, a period defined by wealth disparities that parallel our own. The problem with our search for historical analogies is that we often examine the past within the context of our individual assumptions, finding what we want to find—a process cognitive psychologists call confirmation bias. Given the need for well-observed general history to guide our inquiry, it is gratifying that we have Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920.

Until recently, historians of the era had nearly given up on synthesizing the fractal array of differing impulses behind progressive reform efforts. A large group of progressive reformers wanted to harness the unbridled energy and influence of industry in American life. Other reformers, such as Jane Addams and Jacob Riis, were more interested in ameliorating the day-to-day problems of America’s expanding immigrant working class. Another faction wanted good government, female suffrage, prohibition, and a world safe for democracy. The frustration of making sense of the period has been expressed by John D. Buenker and Peter G. Filene who argued in various essays that, beyond sharing a general dissatisfaction with Industrial America, reformers were too disparate to share common motives for reform.

President of the United States Thomas Woodrow Wilson, 1912

In a sustained and elegant effort, Michael McGerr’s A Fierce Discontent has swept away much of the frustration of the previous generation. The argument at the center of the book makes a clear case that the array of progressive reform impulses were, in fact, quite unified when viewed through the lens of class. It was the horror with which many middle-class Americans viewed the personal excesses of the industrial upper class and the tumultuous and inharmonious society the “upper ten” had imposed on other Americans that inspired progressive reformers and ultimately the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

Given his argument based on class, McGerr takes a few cues from Karl Marx—and many more from Sigmund Freud by way of Richard Hofstadter, the notable mid-century American historian. In the 1950s, it was Hofstadter who made the argument that the progressive impulse of the early twentieth century was driven by a status anxiety among middle-class Americans unsure of their place in the new industrial order.

McGerr has updated this brilliant but dashed-off argument, developing a deeper, more subtle analysis grounded in the primary sources of the era. For example, he takes time to portray the ethos of maximalist individualism that defined the industrial upper class at the turn of the century. He delves into the amusing details of an extravagant 1897 costume ball held for New York’s high society amid the worse economic depression before the 1930s. This set piece, which included reports of the backlash to the ball in America’s leading newspapers, perfectly illustrated the growing rift between a sober, civic-minded middle class and the excess and individualism of the upper class. As McGerr makes clear, it was the culture of the upper class—half perversion and half repudiation of Victorian virtues — that repelled “the middle class enough to transform them from respectable Victorians into radicals.”

Bradley-Martin Ball of 1897 (Via Wikimedia Commons)

In developing this argument, McGerr challenges the views of both the New Left in the 1960s, that progressives were nothing more than petty bourgeois defenders of the new industrial elite—and from more recent arguments of the New Right that progressives of the era were socialists in all but name.

There are many strong points in McGerr’s telling. Foremost among these is the way he brings progressive support for segregation into his larger argument. Many progressives supported legal segregation. Indeed, in the first decades of the twentieth century segregation intensified—and not only in the South. These efforts, McGerr argues, showed the limits of social transformation imagined by progressive reformers. More importantly, it demonstrated the ways in which progressive desires for order took primacy over ideas of racial equality and integration. Segregation was a way to “halt dangerous social conflict that could not otherwise be stopped,” according to McGerr.

National Progressive Convention at the Chicago Coliseum, 1912

The second strength of the book is the extensive use of sources embedded in a tightly organized narrative that covers both the major accomplishments and small victories of the progressive movement. As readers, we witness both the trust-busting heroics of Theodore Roosevelt and the long struggle of Lillian Wald and others to limit child labor. Most importantly, we are given a vantage of changing industrial society from the viewpoint of those whose everyday lives were most dramatically altered. Rahel Golub, the young daughter of German-Jewish immigrants, spent six days each week sewing and serving her family until settlement workers exposed her to a foreign world known as “uptown”—a world so different from the working-class neighborhoods of lower Manhattan that it seemed to her a foreign country.

Child Laborer in the Mollohan Mills, Newberry, South Carolina, 1908.

A third strength is the discussion of the obstacles that challenged and ultimately defeated this army of crusading middle-class reformers. Progressivism, McGerr contends, offered middle-class Americans the utopian promise of a perfected society. Because such a transformational vision demanded so much of Americans, it proved to be an unrealistic vision that led to inevitable letdowns. Reform did not create a harmonious middle-class paradise. Nevertheless, the progressive movement captured the mainstream of American politics and public spirit and its downfall required more than half-met expectations. Despite progressive legislative triumphs against corporate power, the maximalist individualism of the upper class proved more difficult to contain. The leisure class, some of whom had decamped for Europe at the turn of the century, returned in force in the 1920s as American involvement in the First World War discredited the reform-minded collective action of Woodrow Wilson and others.

Editorial cartoon by Karl K. Knecht in Evansville Courier, Oct 1912.

Middle-class reformers also faced growing resistance from a second, new form of individualism emerging from the working-class neighborhoods of America’s industrial cities. Higher real wages and increased leisure time—a progressive triumph—gave rise to a series of new popular entertainments that drew young workers into jazz-filled dance halls, amusement parks, and cathedrals constructed for the era’s most magnificent amusement—moving pictures. The disillusionment with progressive efforts to remake society and the world—along with the resurgence of individualist sentiment on two fronts ultimately doomed progressive reform to the margins of American public life after 1920.

If there are faults in this sweeping history of the Progressive Era, they are few. One might quibble with McGerr’s repeated use of the term “the middle class” to refer to progressive reformers. It is useful but progressive reformers represented only a portion of the middle class and some development of the other sentiments across the middle-class political spectrum would have been helpful. It is hard to explain the popular election of anti-reform Republicans in the 1920s without a more explicit definition of the middle class.

A Fierce Discontent, shows historian Michael McGerr as master of both subject and craft. The book demonstrates his command of the intimate details that illuminate the past and of the analytical perspective that gives these details meaning. As far as historical insights that may help us understand our own times, McGerr’s argument highlights the fact that out of disparate material circumstances disparate sentiments, values, and cultures emerged. The problem for progressives then was that these cultures in conflict were all parts of a single nation, society, and political system.

Michael McGerr, A Fierce Discontent: The Rise and Fall of the Progressive Movement in America, 1870-1920 (Free Press, 2003)

All images via Wikimedia Commons

Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires, by Kris Lane (2010)

By Maria José Afanador-Llach

What do an enslaved African miner in colonial Colombia, a Portuguese Jewish merchant in Cartagena, a gem cutter in Amsterdam, and an Ottoman sultan have in common? Kris Lane’s Colour of Paradise ties together the histories of these diverse and geographically distant peoples by tracing the exploitation, trade, and consumption of emeralds between 1540 and the 1790s. In doing so, the author reconstructs the trans-oceanic commodity chains that connected Colombia to various gem markets in Europe. Once in the Old World, Lane demonstrates that emeralds flowed mostly to the Islamic gunpowder empires of Asia such as Mughal India and Safavid Persia. Lane also follows the shifting cultural meanings of emeralds. He emphasizes a concept of economy that includes “all human relationships mediated by material goods.”

Lane starts with the uses of emeralds among indigenous populations in pre-Hispanic Colombia. He relies on conquest writings and the work of anthropologists and archaeologists in order to grasp the ritual use and divine connotations of emeralds among the Muisca and other native populations. The Spanish conquest of the territories of the Muzo Indians started an era of uninterrupted mining activity. The original inhabitants of regions around Andean emerald deposits were miners and African slaves. Emeralds were soon incorporated into a small but significant gem market in Spain and its colonies. The stones were frequently found in elite women’s dowries and jewelled religious artifacts. As with other gemstones, emeralds were mostly traded secretly, and the profits were mainly reinvested in enslaved Africans.

Ruins of an ancient Muisca temple at El Infiernito (the little hell) near Villa de Leyva.

Records of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions and secondary sources about Atlantic merchant communities prove that emeralds moved east across the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The fragmentary evidence about the global trade in emeralds describes a “highly uncertain business” carried on along with bulkier commodities such as tobacco and textiles. Sephardic Jewish and New Christian family webs connected Cartagena and Curacao with the emerald trade to India via Seville and Lisbon. These merchants also traded the gems in Portuguese Goa during the Spanish Portuguese union (1599-1616). Many merchants’ last stop was Lisbon where there was a diverse community of diamond polishers, stonecutters, pearl-drillers, and goldsmiths. Some of them became “polyglot globetrotters of uncertain loyalty” who deeply infiltrated the kingdoms of south and southwestern Asia. This diaspora of gem traders active in Asia, Lane argues, became “key vectors in emerald’s steady eastern flow.”

Antoine François, ‘Plan de Goa’ 1746-1789

For a historian trained as a Latin Americanist, the task of reconstructing the emerald consumption in South Asia and the Middle East entails a great challenge. Lane used published sources translated from Persian into Spanish, French, Portuguese, and English, in addition to recent translations of documents on the inner workings of the Safavid, Mughal, and Ottoman courts. Emeralds became central to the gift economies of Asia. Muslim rulers appreciated the jewel’s opulence as symbol of power and consumed South American emeralds conspicuously. An emerald-handled dagger from the 1740s, molded on orders of Ottoman Sultan Mahmud I as a gift to Persia’s Nadir Sha, appears in Lane’s visual evidence to illustrate the use of the precious gem as “royal armour.”

Topkapi emerald dagger, held in the Museum Palace Nadir Shah.

Going back to the local context of Muzo, Lane identifies cycles of boom and bust in emerald extraction. By the second half of the seventeenth century, the emeralds of Colombia kept fueling contraband trade networks hidden in slave ships and specie cargo. Ships manifests’ and objects recovered from shipwrecks speak of a significant number of Colombian emeralds traveling to Curacao and Jamaica, and to Amsterdam and London. After a decline in production during the early eighteenth century, the Spanish Monarchy sponsored a series of mining missions with European experts to the colonies. The missions in Muzo attempted to increase emerald production but failed to deliver significant improvement. The eighteenth century also saw the extinction of the Safavid Dynasty in Persia and the fall of the Mughal Empire in India, which according to Lane, affected the global emerald trade to an unknown extent.

Shah Suleiman I and his courtiers, Isfahan, 1670. Painter is Aliquli Jabbadar.

Unlike the scale and scope of early modern commodity chains of spices, textiles, and precious metals, Lane recognizes that emerald production was not “globally transformative.” Nonetheless, a very special type of commodity chain marked the shifting cultural and political meaning of the gem. An isolated peripheral mining region under Spanish colonialism produced a gem that merchants traded in very small quantities to satisfy the desires of Asian despots. In narrating how the emerald became a global gem, Lane not only sheds light on early modern globalization patterns. Moving from Colombia to Europe, and then to Asia, and back to Colombia, Colour of Paradise devotes careful attention to the communities of miners, merchants, stonecutters, diplomats, kings, and sultans. Lane successfully blends a history of early modern globalization with an unconventional yet refreshing approach to colonial Latin American history.

Muzo, Colombia.

Colombian emerald mines have been active now for hundreds of years producing the finest gemstones of the world. The extraction of emeralds, however, has been marked by a bloody war among the families that operate the mines and illegal armed actors disputing the control of the so-called “green gold.” Despite this situation, the miners of Muzo dig every day at 590 ft. underground while guaqueros search for the precious stone amid the waste from the mines. On the corner of 7th Street and Jimenez Avenue in downtown Bogota, a number of men stand for hours trading emeralds. Buyers from Japan, Europe, and the United States arrive in the city looking for the gems, and Colombian emeralds continue to fuel global demand for the precious stones.

Kris E. Lane, Colour of Paradise: The Emerald in the Age of Gunpowder Empires (Yale University Press, 2010)

You may also like:

Ernesto Mercado Montero discusses Ordinary Lives in the Early Caribbean: Religion, Colonial Competition, and the Politics of Profit, by Kristen Block (2012)

Mark Sheaves reviews Francisco de Miranda: A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution 1750-1816, by Karen Racine (2002)

Bradley Dixon, Facing North From Inca Country: Entanglement, Hybridity, and Rewriting Atlantic History

Ben Breen recommends Explorations in Connected History: from the Tagus to the Ganges (Oxford University Press, 2004), by Sanjay Subrahmanyam

Christopher Heaney reviews Poetics of Piracy: Emulating Spain in English Literature (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) by Barbara Fuchs

Jorge Esguerra-Cañizares discusses his book Puritan Conquistadors: Iberianizing the Atlantic, 1550-170 (Stanford University Press, 2006) on Not Even Past.

Renata Keller discusses Empires of the Atlantic World: Britain and Spain in the Americas, 1492-1830 (Yale University Press, 2007) by J.H. Elliott

All images via Wikimedia Commons.

Everyday Stalinism, by Sheila Fitzpatrick (2000)

By Travis Gray

Shelia Fitzpatrick’s work provides a detailed exploration of daily urban life in Stalinist Russia. Covering a wide array of subjects, including bureaucracy, consumption, utopianism, family life, and the Great Purge, she argues that “Stalin’s Revolution” forced ordinary Russians to adopt new attitudes and practices that ensured survival in the face of scarcity and repression. Fitzpatrick presents three major arguments to support this claim. First, chronic shortages in housing and consumer products generated alternative strategies for acquiring scarce goods. Second, the state’s obsession with social origin and status prompted marginalized people (e.g. priests, kulaks, and political prisoners) to conceal their past identities in order to rejoin Soviet society. Third, state surveillance taught Soviet citizens to distrust Soviet officials creating an environment of mutual suspicion that resulted in the mass terror of 1937-38. Overall, Fitzpatrick’s arguments are persuasive and compelling, presenting a complex portrait of Stalinism through the daily experiences of those who lived it.

Consumption is a major theme in this work. Fitzpatrick emphasizes the ubiquity of shortages and how this led to a national obsession with obtaining and hoarding consumer goods. Indeed, survival often depended on an individual’s ability to undermine the state’s centralized distribution system through speculation and blat (reciprocal relationships involving goods and favors). These two elements constituted a “second economy” and was, according to Fitzpatrick, the most important aspect of urban life in Stalinist Russia. The second economy not only “took the edge off the harsh circumstances of Soviet life,” but also revealed that the state was a flexible entity that could be subverted and negotiated with on a daily basis (65).

Starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933.

Fitzpatrick goes on to discuss the rigid social hierarchies that characterized Soviet society. Indeed, the regime’s elite bore the marks of aristocratic privilege (e.g. champagne, caviar, private cars, and dachas) and used their connections with the Soviet state to rise to the top of the social ladder. Fitzpatrick’s most important contribution, however, is her detailed description of marginalized social groups. In order to survive, many of these people tried to conceal their identities by creating “two personae, an ‘invented’ public self and a ‘real’ private self” (132). Although many were later unmasked by the state, these instances illustrate the great risks that ordinary people were willing to take in order to reincorporate themselves into Soviet society.

Children are digging up frozen potatoes in the field of a collectivefarm. Udachne village, Donec’k oblast 1933

Finally, the last two chapters of this work deal with the nature of state surveillance as well as the Great Purge of 1937-38. Although these subjects have been covered before by a number of different authors, Fitzpatrick approaches these two subjects in a radically different way. Surveillance in Stalinist Russia was multi-directional, the state was not only watching its citizens, but its citizen’s were also watching the state. These mutual feelings of distrust and suspicion prompted a wave of denunciations and arrests that led to the Great Purge. As a result, the Great Purge was characterized by widespread popular support among citizens who resented state officials and the privileged urban elite. By preemptively denouncing these “enemies of the people,” individuals sought to ensure their own safety as well as rid themselves of their personal enemies.

NKVD chiefs responsible for conducting mass repressions: Yakov Agranov, Genrikh Yagoda, Stanislav Redens. 1934.

In sum, this book provides the reader with deep insight into the nature of Stalinism as a day-to-day experience. It helps characterize daily urban life within the Soviet Union as a constant struggle for survival amidst shortages, repression, and terror.