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The past is never dead. It's not even past

Not Even Past

Latin America and the Caribbean

Review of Making Never-Never Land: Race and Law in the Creation of Puerto Rico by Monica A. Jiménez (2024)

Review of Empire of Poverty. The Moral-Political Economy of the Spanish Empire, by Julia McClure (2025). 

Remembering Violeta Parra

Review of Chino: Anti-Chinese Racism in Mexico, 1880-1940 by Jason Oliver Chang (2017)

Review of Thanks to Life: A Biography of Violeta Parra, by Ericka Verba (2025)

Review of Indigenous Autocracy: Power, Race, and Resources in Porfirian Tlaxcala, Mexico, by Jaclyn Ann Sumner (2024)

Review of Piracy and the Making of the Spanish Pacific World, by Kristie Flannery (2024)

Review of The Science of Useful Nature in Central America: Landscapes, Networks, and Practical Enlightenment, 1784–1838, by Sophie Brockmann (2020).

Review of We the King: Creating Royal Legislation in the Sixteenth-century Spanish New World by Adrian Masters (Cambridge University Press, 2023)

Review of Bolivia in the Age of Gas (2020) by Bret Gustafson

Review of The Age of Dissent: Revolution and the Power of Communication in Chile (2023), by Martín Bowen

Review of Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914 (2010) by J. R. McNeill

Converting “Latinos” during Salem’s Witch Trials: A Review of Cotton Mather’s Spanish Lessons: A Story of Language, Race, and Belonging in the Early Americas (2022) by Kirsten Silva Gruesz

Review of Guaraná: How Brazil Embraced the World’s Most Caffeine-Rich Plant (2022) by Seth Garfield

Book cover of Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States by Felipe Fernández-Armesto

Review of Our America: A Hispanic History of the United States, by Felipe Fernández-Armesto (2014)

Review of Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America (2020), by Tanya Harmer

The New World and Beyond: A Review of New World Nature

Coding Viceregal Art: Project Arca and Spanish Visual Culture Within the Digital Humanities

The Intra-American Slave Trade Database: A Review and Interview with Gregory O’Malley and Alex Borucki

Review of Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration (2018)

Review of Undocumented Lives: The Untold Story of Mexican Migration (2018)

Optics of the State

Review of The Optic of the State: Visuality and Power in Argentina and Brazil (2007) by Jens Andermann

Republics of Knowledge, Democracy, and Race in Nineteenth-Century Spanish America (2020) by Nicola Miller

Fifth Sun

Review of Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs (2019) by Camila Townsend

Review of From Angel to Office Worker: Middle-Class Identity and Female Consciousness in Mexico, 1890-1950 (2018) by Susie S. Porter

Film Review: La Llorona, Directed by Jayro Bustamante

Memory's Turn

Review of Memory’s Turn: Reckoning with Dictatorship in Brazil by Rebecca J. Atencio (2014)

Digital Archive of Latin American and Caribbean Ephemera

Book cover of Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil by Paulina L. Alberto

Review of Terms of Inclusion: Black Intellectuals in Twentieth-Century Brazil (2011)

On the Backs of Tortoises: Darwin, the Galápagos, and the Fate of an Evolutionary Eden by Elizabeth Hennessy (2019)

A Black Jurist in a Slave Society: Antonio Pereira Rebouças and the Trials of Brazilian Citizenship, translated by Kristin M. McGuire (2019)

Digital Archive Review: Latin American and Caribbean Digital Primary Resources

Digital Archive Review – Imágenes y relatos de un viaje por Colombia

Who Killed Berta Cáceres? Dams, Death Squads, and an Indigenous Defender’s Battle for the Planet by Nina Lakhani (2020)

Digital Archive Review – Ticha: A Digital Text Explorer for Colonial Zapotec

Digital Archive Review – Más de 72

Border Land, Border Water: A History of Construction on the U.S.-Mexico Divide by C.J. Alvarez (2019)

Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in the Age of Revolution by Ada Ferrer (2014)

Dispossessed Lives: Enslaved Women, Violence, and the Archive by Marisa Fuentes (2016)

Blacks of the Land: Indian Slavery, Settler Society, and the Portuguese Colonial Enterprise in South America by John M. Monteiro (2018)

Cross-Cultural Exchange in the Atlantic World; Angola and Brazil during the Era of the Slave Trade by Roquinaldo Ferreira (2012)

Promiscuous Power: An Unorthodox History of New Spain by Martin Nesvig (2018)

When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting that Changed History, by Matthew Restall (2018)

The King’s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico by Alejandro Cañeque (2004)

A Poverty of Rights, Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro by Brodwyn Fischer (2008)

Satan’s Playground: Mobsters and Movie Stars at America’s Greatest Gaming Resort, By Paul J. Vanderwood (2009)

Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala (2014)

Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War (2016)

Review of The Argentine Silent Majority: Middle Classes, Politics, Violence, and Memory in the Seventies (2014), by Sebastián Carassai

Indigenous Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes edited by Gabriela Ramos and Yanna Yannakakis (2014)

The Archaeology and History of Colonial Mexico by Enrique Rodríguez Alegría (2016)

The Battle of Chile

Book cover of Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico by Daniel Nemser

Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico by Daniel Nemser (2017)

The National Museum of Anthropology in San Salvador

Mapping the Country of Regions: The Chorographic Commission of Nineteenth-Century Colombia, by Nancy P. Appelbaum (2016)

Dolores del Río: Beauty in Light and Shade, By Linda B. Hall (2013)

Global Indios: The Indigenous Struggle for Justice in Sixteenth-Century Spain, By Nancy van Deusen (2015)

Tejanos through Time

Great Books on Women’s History: Crossing Borders

My Cocaine Museum, by Michael Taussig (2004)

Magical Realism on Drugs: Colombian History in Netflix’s Narcos

The Invention of the Brazilian Northeast, by Durval Muniz de Albuquerque Jr. (2014)

A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico jointly created the Mexican Drug War, by Carmen Boullosa and Mike Wallace (2015)

The Disappearing Mestizo, by Joanne Rappaport (2014)

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

More to Read about Caste and South Asia

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

Read more about sculpture and Mesoamerica

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

Outlaws of the Atlantic, by Marcus Rediker (2014)

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

Partners in Conflict: The Politics of Gender, Sexuality, and Labor in The Chilean Agrarian Reform, 1950-1973, by Heidi Tinsman

Gendered Compromises: Political Culture and the State in Chile, 1920-1950 by Karin Alejandra Rosemblatt

Omens of Adversity: Tragedy, Time, Memory, Justice, by David Scott (2014)

Visible Empire: Botanical Expeditions and Visual Culture in the Hispanic Enlightenment, by Daniela Bleichmar (2012)

Mapping The Slave Trade: The New Archive (No. 10)

No Mere Shadows: Faces of Widowhood in Early Colonial Mexico, by Shirley Cushing Flint (2013)

The Fish that Ate the Whale: The Life and Times of America’s Banana King, by Rich Cohen (2012)

Great Books and a Film on the Amazon

The Deepest Wounds: A Labor and Environmental History of Sugar in Northeast Brazil by Thomas D. Rogers (2010)

For Social Peace in Brazil: Industrialists and the Remaking of the Working Class in São Paulo, 1920-1964 by Barbara Weinstein (1996)

I am Cuba, for Sale (1964)

Laws of Chance: Brazil’s Clandestine Lottery and the Making of Urban Public Life by Amy Chazkel (2011)

Book cover of War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and Tejano Communities edited by Arnoldo De León

War Along the Border: The Mexican Revolution and the Tejano Communities edited by Arnoldo De León (2012)

Co-Winner of April Essay Contest: Another Face of Empire: Bartolomé de Las Casas, Indigenous Rights, and Ecclesiastical Imperialism by Daniel Castro (2007)

Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia by João José Reis (1993)

Performing Piety: Making Space Sacred with the Virgin of Guadalupe by Elaine A. Peña (2011)

Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint by R. Andrew Chesnut (2011)

The Cuban Connection by Eduardo Saénz Rovner (2008)

Trading Roles: Gender, Ethnicity, and the Urban Economy in Colonial Potosí by Jane Mangan (2005)

Freud’s Mexico: Into the Wilds of Psychoanalysis by Rubén Gallo (2010)

Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History by Richard Lee Turits (2004)

Patrons, Partisans, and Palace Intrigues: The Court Society of Colonial Mexico 1702-1710 by Christoph Rosenmüller (2008)

For Greater Glory (2012)

Che: A Revolutionary Life by Jon Lee Anderson (2010)

Tropical Zion: General Trujillo, FDR, and the Jews of Sosúa by Allen Wells (2009)

Bárbaros: Spaniards and Their Savages in the Age of Enlightenment by David J. Weber (2005)

Dulcinea in the Factory: Myths, Morals, Men, and Women in Colombia’s Industrial Experiment, 1905–1960 by Ann Farnsworth-Alvear (2000)

Movie poster of the movie Camila: Love Against All Odds

Camila (1984)

From Baseball to Politics

The Dictator’s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of Trujillo by Lauren Derby (2009)

Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America edited by Andrew B. Fisher and Matthew D. O’Hara (2009)

Undergraduate Essay Contest Winner: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano (1971)

Movie poster of the movie When the Mountains Tremble: The Astonishing Story of Rigoberta Menchú, Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize

Two documentaries on Guatemala’s violent civil war

Great Books on La Violencia in Guatemala

The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (2003)

Sacred Hunger by Barry Unsworth (1993)

Book cover of Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico by Elaine Carey

Plaza of Sacrifices: Gender, Power, and Terror in 1968 Mexico by Elaine Carey (2005)

Book cover of The Doubtful Strait/El estrecho dudoso by Ernesto Cardenal and translated by John Lyons

The Doubtful Strait/El Estrecho Dudoso by Ernesto Cardenal (1995)

Book cover of The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War Updated Edition by Greg Grandin

The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War by Greg Grandin (2004)

Book cover of Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary by Bertrand M. Patenaude

Trotsky: Downfall of a Revolutionary by Bertrand M. Patenaude (2009)

Book cover of Aids & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame by Paul Farmer

AIDS & Accusation: Haiti and the Geography of Blame by Paul Farmer (1992)

Hollywood’s Brazil: Rio (2011)

Stencil of Che Guevara in gray on yellow background

Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image by Michael Casey (2009)

Book cover of Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil by Bryan McCann

Hello, Hello Brazil: Popular Music in the Making of Modern Brazil by Bryan McCann (2004)

Book cover of Remembering Pinochet's Chile: On the Eve of London 1998 by Steve J. Stern

Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998 by Steven Stern (2006)

Banana Cultures: Agriculture, Consumption & Environmental Change in Honduras and the United States by John Soluri (2005)

Book cover of Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro by Brodwyn Fischer

A Poverty of Rights: Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janiero by Brodwyn Fischer (2010)

Book cover of Latin America's Cold War by Hal Brands

Latin America’s Cold War by Hal Brands (2010)

Book cover of Death is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil by João José Reis

Death is a Festival: Funeral Rites and Rebellion in Nineteenth-Century Brazil by João José Reis (2007)

The Old Man and the New Man in Revolutionary Cuba

Book cover of Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas: Mexican Workers and Job Politics During World War II by Emilio Zamora

“Claiming Rights and Righting Wrongs in Texas; Mexican Workers and Job Politics during World War II” by Emilio Zamora (2009)

Recent Posts

  • NEP’s Archive Chronicles: A Brief Guide Through Some Archives in Gaborone and Serowe, Botswana
  • Review of Hierarchies at Home: Domestic Service in Cuba from Abolition to Revolution (2022), by Anasa Hicks
  • Agency and Resistance: African and Indigenous Women’s Navigation of Economic, Legal, and Religious Structures in Colonial Spanish America
  • NEP’s Archive Chronicles: Unexpected Archives. Exploring Student Notebooks at the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire (IFAN) in Senegal
  • Review of No Place Like Nome: The Bering Strait Seen Through Its Most Storied City
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