By Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra Matthew Restall’s When Montezuma met Cortés delivers a blow to the basic structure of all current histories of the conquest of Mexico. Absolutely all accounts, from Cortés’ second letter to Charles V in 1520 to Inga Clendinnen’s masterful 1991 article “’Fierce and Unnatural Cruelty,’”[1] assume that the conquest of Mexico was led by […]
Latin America and the Caribbean
The King’s Living Image: The Culture and Politics of Viceregal Power in Colonial Mexico by Alejandro Cañeque (2004)
By Marcus Golding Latin American popular culture presents two common tropes about Spanish colonial rule. One is the representation of viceroys as autocrats who ruled without any institutional constraint. This perception “explains” the authoritarian tendencies of Latin American societies in the postcolonial period. The other trope ironically undermines perceptions of authoritarian control by highlighting the […]
A Poverty of Rights, Citizenship and Inequality in Twentieth-Century Rio de Janeiro by Brodwyn Fischer (2008)
By Marcus Oliver Golding Getúlio Vargas, President of Brazil from 1930-1945, is often credited as the champion of the Brazilian working class during the twentieth century. His policies led to the progressive industrialization of Brazil and to a barrage of labor regulations that protected workers’ rights. However, not everyone benefited equally from these laws. Thousands […]
Satan’s Playground: Mobsters and Movie Stars at America’s Greatest Gaming Resort, By Paul J. Vanderwood (2009)
By Diego A. Godoy For Tijuanenses, the sight of the Agua Caliente entertainment complex conjures up images of two distinct things. The first: dogs. The Tijuana racetrack is home to nearly 700 galgos, Spanish greyhounds that race almost daily. Adjacent to the track is the multi-use Estadio Caliente, the home turf of Club Tijuana Xoloitzcuintles […]
Paper Cadavers: The Archives of Dictatorship in Guatemala (2014)
By Marcus Oliver Golding Archives, especially state archives, have political agendas. Whether private or public, holdings of individual, institutional, and government documents can serve to invade and control the lives of citizens and societies. Their organizations shape historical knowledge and national narratives about the past. Kirsten Weld addresses these political issues of government intrusion, historical […]
Precarious Paths to Freedom: The United States, Venezuela, and the Latin American Cold War (2016)
By Marcus Oliver Golding The role of the United States during the Cold War is one often marked by tragedy, repression and the support for authoritarian regimes throughout the western hemisphere. That perception is shared throughout Latin America, which makes one wonder if there are cases in which U.S. foreign policy actually helped Latin Americans […]
The Argentine Silent Majority: Middle Classes, Politics, Violence, and Memory in the Seventies (2014)
by Paula O’Donnell On March 24, 1976, a junta led by Jorge Rafael Videla overthrew the president of Argentina in order to install a military dictatorship that they believed would counter the threat of communism . In the seven years that followed, this new government launched a “national reorganization process” or proceso, designed to eradicate Marxist […]
Indigenous Intellectuals: Knowledge, Power, and Colonial Culture in Mexico and the Andes edited by Gabriela Ramos and Yanna Yannakakis (2014)
By Abisai Pérez Zamarripa This collective book is about the role of Indian thinkers as actors who preserved pre-Columbian knowledge within the new social order and recreated it to enforce or contest Spanish imperial rule. The book editors integrated several essays of top historians that explain how indigenous intellectuals in the colonial Andes and Mexico were important for […]
The Archaeology and History of Colonial Mexico by Enrique Rodríguez Alegría (2016)
by Brittany Erwin In this study of the social significance of material culture in Mexico City and Xaltocan in the early colonial period, Rodriguez Alegría uses a variety of sources, including archaeological evidence relating to food consumption, catalogues of ceramic sherds from several dig sites in these cities, and wills, stock lists, and auction records. […]
Infrastructures of Race: Concentration and Biopolitics in Colonial Mexico by Daniel Nemser (2017)
by Haley Schroer By focusing on the relationship between race and physical space, Nemser analyzes colonial concepts of race through an unexpected and innovative lens. His investigation of concrete structures and their effect on the creation of Mexico’s caste society spans the Spanish colonial period, from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Examining the dynamic […]
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