Book picks similar to
Design for Eternity: Architectural Models from the Ancient Americas by Joanne Pillsbury


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architecture
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Revolution in the Revolution? Armed Struggle and Political Struggle in Latin America


Régis Debray - 1967
    In the late 1960s he was a professor of philosophy at the University of Havana in Cuba, and became an associate of Che Guevara in Bolivia. He wrote the book Revolution in the Revolution?, which analysed the tactical & strategic doctrines then prevailing among militant socialist movements in Latin America, & acted as a handbook for guerrilla warfare that supplemented Guevara's own manual on the subject. It was published by Maspero in Paris in 1967 & in the same year in New York (Monthly Review Press & Grove), Montevideo (Sandino), Milan (Feltrinelli) & Munich (Trikont). Guevara was captured in Bolivia early in 10/67; on 4/20/67, Debray had been arrested in the small town of Muyupampa, also in Bolivia. Convicted of having been part of Guevara's guerrilla group Debray on 11/17 was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was released in 1970 after an international campaign for his release which included Jean-Paul Sartre, André Malraux, Général De Gaulle & Pope Paul VI.

Pedagogical Sketchbook: Introduction by Sibyl Moholy-Nagy


Paul Klee - 1925
    . . This little handbook leads us into the mysterious world where science and imagination fuse.' Observer

Building the Commune: Radical Democracy in Venezuela


George Ciccariello-Maher - 2016
    The demands have been varied, but have expressed a consistent commitment to the ideals of radical democracy.Similar experiments began appearing across Latin America twenty-five years ago, just as the left fell into decline in Europe. In Venezuela, poor barrio residents arose in a mass rebellion against neoliberalism, ushering in a government that institutionalized the communes already forming organically. In Building the Commune, George Ciccariello-Maher travels through these radical experiments, speaking to a broad range of community members, workers, students and government officials. Assessing the projects’ successes and failures, Building the Commune provides lessons and inspiration for the radical movements of today.

Rivera


Andrea Kettenmann - 1996
    From 1910 Rivera lived in Europe where he absorbed the influence of Cubism. After the Mexican revolution, however, he returned to his homeland and harnessed the lessons of the European avant-garde to the needs of the Mexican people. His own murals, and those of the Mexican Muralists who followed his example, presented a utopian vision of a post-revolutionary Mexico. Rivera's historical paintings expressed his interpretation of the revolution and its ideals, in a style that showed him returning to the pre-Columbian roots of Mexican culture, re-inventing a colourfully realistic visual idiom that could appeal directly to a largely illiterate people. This is the first study which, independently of the exhibition circuit, coherently presents the work of this extraordinary artist. About the Series: Each book in TASCHEN's Basic Art series features:a detailed chronological summary of the life and oeuvre of the artist, covering his or her cultural and historical importance a concise biography approximately 100 illustrations with explanatory captions

Master Builders of the Middle Ages


David Jacobs - 1969
    It is difficult for us now, even with all our engineering and architectural skills, to imagine the extraordinary ways these medieval houses of worship were constructed. Midway through the twelfth century, the building of cathedrals became a crusade to erect awe-inspiring churches across Europe. In their zeal, bishops, monks, masons, and workmen created the architectural style known as Gothic, arguably Christianity’s greatest contribution to the world’s art and architecture. The style evolved slowly and almost accidentally as medieval artisans combined ingenuity, inspiration, and brute strength to create a fitting monument to their God. Here are the dramatic stories of the building of Saint-Denis, Notre Dame, Chartres, Reims, and other Gothic cathedrals.

Women Writing Resistance: Essays on Latin America and the Caribbean


Jennifer Browdy - 2003
    Through poetry and essays, writers from the Anglophone, Hispanic, and Francophone Caribbean, including Puertorriquenas and Cubanas, grapple with their hybrid American political identities. Gloria Anzaldua, the founder of Chicana queer theory; Rigoberta Menchu, the first Indigenous person to win a Nobel Peace Prize; and Michelle Cliff, a searing and poignant chronicler of colonialism and racism, among many others, highlight how women can collaborate across class, race, and nationality to lead a new wave of resistance against neoliberalism, patriarchy, state terrorism, and white supremacy.

Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro


Janice Perlman - 2009
    Now, in Favela, Perlman carries that story forward to the present. Re-interviewing many longtime favela residents whom she hadfirst met in 1969--as well as their children and grandchildren--Perlman offers the only long-term perspective available on the favelados as they struggle for a better life.Perlman discovers that while educational levels have risen, democracy has replaced dictatorship, and material conditions have improved, many residents feel more marginalized than ever. The greatest change is the explosion of drug and arms trade and the high incidence of fatal violence that hasresulted. Yet the greatest challenge of all is job creation--decent work for decent pay. If unemployment and under-paid employment are not addressed, she argues, all other efforts will fail to resolve the fundamental issues. Foreign Affairs praises Perlman for writing with compassion, artistry, and intelligence, using stirring personal stories to illustrate larger points substantiated with statistical analysis.

Back Channel to Cuba: The Hidden History of Negotiations Between Washington and Havana


William M. Leogrande - 2014
    Since 1959, conflict and aggression have dominated the story of U.S.-Cuban relations. Now, LeoGrande and Kornbluh present a new and increasingly more relevant account. From Kennedy's offering of an olive branch to Castro after the missile crisis, to Kissinger's top secret quest for normalization, to Obama's promise of a "new approach," LeoGrande and Kornbluh reveal a fifty-year record of dialogue and negotiations, both open and furtive, indicating a path toward better relations in the future.

The Tupac Amaru Rebellion


Charles F. Walker - 2014
    As an official collector of tribute for the imperial crown, Jose Gabriel Condorcanqui had seen firsthand what oppressive Spanish rule meant for Peru's Indian population. Adopting the Inca royal name Tupac Amaru, he set events in motion that would transform him into Latin America's most iconic revolutionary figure.Tupac Amaru's political aims were modest at first. He claimed to act on the Spanish king's behalf, expelling corrupt Spaniards and abolishing onerous taxes. But the rebellion became increasingly bloody as it spread throughout Peru and into parts of modern-day Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina. By late 1780, Tupac Amaru, his wife Micaela Bastidas, and their followers had defeated the Spanish in numerous battles and gained control over a vast territory. As the rebellion swept through Indian villages to gain recruits and overthrow the Spanish corregidors," rumors spread that the Incas had returned to reclaim their kingdom.Charles Walker immerses readers in the rebellion's guerrilla campaigns, propaganda war, and brutal acts of retribution. He highlights the importance of Bastidas--the key strategist--and reassesses the role of the Catholic Church in the uprising's demise. The Tupac Amaru Rebellion "examines why a revolt that began as a multiclass alliance against European-born usurpers degenerated into a vicious caste war--and left a legacy that continues to influence South American politics today."

Letters from Mexico


Hernán Cortés
    Pagden’s English translation has been prepared from a close examination of the earliest surviving manuscript and of the first printed editions, and he also provides a new introduction offering a bold and innovative interpretation of the nature of the conquest and Cortes’s involvement in it. J. H. Elliot’s introductory essay explains Cortes’s conflicts with the Crown and with Diego Velazquez, the governor of Cuba.“The definitive edition [of the letters] in any language. . . . The book is a ’must’ for all those who are seriously interested in this traumatic clash of civilizations and the consequences, both for good and ill, which ensued.”—C. R. Boxer, English Historical Review“One of the most fascinating Machiavellian documents to come out of the Renaissance.”—Carlos Fuentes, Guardian “[Pagden] provides us with two important innovations: the first reliable edition of the most important Spanish text . . . and annotations that draw on Pagden’s own profound knowledge of Mesoamerican cultures.”—Helen Nader, Sixteenth Century Journal

Che: A Graphic Biography


Sid Jacobson - 2009
    From the pages of history textbooks to silk-screened T-shirts at Urban Outfitters, his mythologized face is positively unavoidable. But what, exactly, does this glorified image stand for?During his life, and perhaps even more since his death, Che has elicited controversy and wildly divergent opinions as to who he was and what he represented. In Che: A Graphic Biography, Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colón—the graphic duo who made the 9/11 Commission Report understandable in their bestselling The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation and who most recently explained the ongoing war on terror in After 9/11—have come together again to give a real portrait of Ernesto Guevara de la Serna. Following Che from his fabled motorcycle journeys with Alberto Granado as a young medical student to his eventual execution at the hands of Bolivian soldiers and CIA operatives, Che: A Graphic Biography not only provides a concrete time line of his life but also gives a broader understanding of his beliefs, his legacy, and Latin American politics during the mid-twentieth century.

Solibo Magnificent


Patrick Chamoiseau - 1988
    Suddenly, in the middle of a raucously entertaining story, Solibo drops dead. So entranced and drunken are his friends, they initially fail to realize that their hero has spoken his last word. One hysterical listener runs to find the doctor and inadvertently returns with the overly eager, sinister chief sergeant, who holds Solibo's friends under suspicion for murder. At turns a madcap murder mystery, a political satire, and a lament on the death of a treasured tradition, Solibo Magnificent is wildly imaginative and exuberantly lyrical.Praise for Solibo Magnificent"Both a meaty tale and a cry on behalf of a drowning culture . . . by a poet and a novelist with a raffishly human and lyrical touch."--Los Angeles Times"A world class author . . . whose voice and imagination are like nothing you've read before."--The Washington Post Book World

The Four Voyages: Being His Own Log-Book, Letters and Dispatches with Connecting Narratives


Cristoforo Colombo
    He promised to give a silk doublet to the first sailor who should report it'No gamble in history has been more momentous than the landfall of Columbus's ship the Santa Maria in the Americas in 1492 - an event that paved the way for the conquest of a 'New World'. The accounts collected here provide a vivid narrative of his voyages throughout the Caribbean and finally to the mainland of Central America, although he still believed he had reached Asia. Columbus himself is revealed as a fascinating and contradictory figure, fluctuating from awed enthusiasm to paranoia and eccentric geographical speculation. Prey to petty quarrels with his officers, his pious desire to bring Christian civilization to 'savages' matched by his rapacity for gold, Columbus was nonetheless an explorer and seaman of staggering vision and achievement.For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

The Mystery at Chadwick House


Kate Parker - 2019
    All of that can be explained. An attraction to an enigma can't.Adam Chadwick is the biggest puzzle of all. He's a stranger in town, and he won't tell Emma about his past. Is he behind the attacks at the old Victorian mansion? Or is something more sinister happening?

The Aztecs


Richard F. Townsend - 1992
    Beginning with the story of the Spanish conquest, the text then charts the rise of the Aztecs from humble nomads to empire builders. Within 100 years they established the largest empire in Mesoamerican history and, at Tenochtitlan, built a vast city in a lake, a Venice of the New World. This revised edition has been updated, assimilating information from archaeological excavations and ethnohistoric studies, and widening the picture of Aztec culture beyond their cities. Additional material on topics ranging from local crafts, trade, agriculture and food to architecture, society and women's roles depicts the richness of life in villages and regional centres. Illustrations of archaeological sites, pictorial manuscripts and monuments enhance the narrative.