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Paco Ignacio Taibo II - 1991
    At least two hundred students were shot dead and many more were detained. Then the bodies were trucked out, the cobblestones were washed clean. Detainees were held without recourse until 1971. Official denial of the killing continues even today: In the first week of February 2003, Mexico's Education Secretary Reyes Tamez ordered a new history textbook that mentions the massacre--Claudia Sierra's History of Mexico: An Analytical Approach--removed from shelves and classrooms. (Public outcry led Tamez to reverse his decision days later.) No one has yet been held accountable for the official acts of savagery. With provocative, anecdotal, and analytical prose, Taibo claims for history "one more of the many unredeemed and sleepless ghosts that live in our lands."

Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900


Alfred W. Crosby - 1986
    The military successes of European imperialism are easy to explain because in many cases they were achieved by using firearms against spears. Alfred Crosby, however, explains that the Europeans' displacement and replacement of the native peoples in the temperate zones was more a matter of biology than of military conquest. Now in a new edition with a new preface, Crosby revisits his classic work and again evaluates the ecological reasons for European expansion. Alfred W. Crosby is the author of the widely popular and ground-breaking books, The Measure of Reality (Cambridge, 1996), and America's Forgotten Pandemic (Cambridge, 1990). His books have received the Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, the Medical Writers Association Prize and been named by the Los Angeles Times as among the best books of the year. He taught at the University of Texas, Austin for over 20 years. First Edition Hb (1986): 0-521-32009-7 First Edition Pb (1987): 0-521-33613-

Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India


Bernard S. Cohn - 1996
    His earlier publications have shown how dramatic British innovations in India, including revenue and legal systems, led to fundamental structural changes in Indian social relations. This collection of his writings in the last fifteen years discusses areas in which the colonial impact has generally been overlooked. The essays form a multifaceted exploration of the ways in which the British discovery, collection, and codification of information about Indian society contributed to colonial cultural hegemony and political control.Cohn argues that the British Orientalists' study of Indian languages was important to the colonial project of control and command. He also asserts that an arena of colonial power that seemed most benign and most susceptible to indigenous influences--mostly law--in fact became responsible for the institutional reactivation of peculiarly British notions about how to regulate a colonial society made up of others. He shows how the very Orientalist imagination that led to brilliant antiquarian collections, archaeological finds, and photographic forays were in fact forms of constructing an India that could be better packaged, inferiorized, and ruled. A final essay on cloth suggests how clothes have been part of the history of both colonialism and anticolonialism.

This Is Mexico: Tales of Culture and Other Complications


Carol Merchasin - 2015
    By turns humorous and poignant, Merchasin provides an informed look at Mexican culture and history, exploring everything from healthcare, Mexican-style, to religious rituals; from the educational role of the telenovela to the cultural subtleties of the Spanish language. Written with a clear eye for details, a warm heart for Mexico, and a lively sense of humor, This Is Mexico is an insider's look at the joys, sorrows, and challenges of life in this complex country.

Hartwood: Between the Land and the Sea


Eric Werner - 2015
    Every dish has a balance of sweet and spicy, fresh and dried, oil and acid, without relying heavily on wheat and dairy. The flavouring elements are simple - honeys, salts, fresh and dried herbs, fresh and dried chiles, onions, garlic - but by using the same ingredients in different forms, Werner layers flavours to bring forth maximum deliciousness. The recipes are beautifully photographed and interspersed with inspiring, gorgeously illustrated essays about this setting and story, making Hartwood an exhilarating experience from beginning to end.

¡Ya Basta!: Ten Years of the Zapatista Uprising


Subcomandante Marcos - 1994
    And in the Zapatistas, we have not one dream of a revolution but a dreaming revolution.”—Naomi KleinThe most comprehensive collection of essays and communiqués by Subcomandante Marcos chronicles the written voice of the Zapatista movement and its struggle to open a space within the neoliberal, globalized landscape for the oppressed peoples of the world. Complete from their first public appearance in 1994 through their 10-year anniversary celebrations and period of restructuring in 2004.“The Zapatista uprising in Chiapas was certainly one of the most dramatic and important instances in our time of a genuine grassroots movement against oppression. In this volume, the writings of Subcomandante Marcos give eloquent expression to this movement, revealing both its philo-sophical foundations and its tactical ingenuity. I believe his words and the statements of the Zapatistas can inspire a new generation of activists and let them understand that it is possible for ordinary people, without military power, without wealth, to challenge state power successfully on behalf of social justice. [This] fantastic collection of Marcos’ words conveys the spirit of the Zapatistas as no other book I know has done.”—Howard Zinn“After over 500 years of conquest, the indigenous -people already know what the rest of us must learn about empires: that they exploit the many for the privileges of the few, that they ransack the cultures of antiquity, that they place a burden even on the mother countries. But in their actions and writings, the Zapatistas are inspiring a new generation to join the struggle for a better world. It’s our world too!”—Tom Hayden

Flammable: Environmental Suffering in an Argentine Shantytown


Javier Auyero - 2008
    So are its nearly five thousand sickened and frail inhabitants. How do poor people make sense of and cope with toxic pollution? Why do they fail to understand what is objectively a clear and present danger? How are perceptions and misperceptionsshared within a community?Based on archival research and two and a half years of collaborative ethnographic fieldwork in Flammable, this book examines the lived experiences of environmental suffering. Despite clear evidence to the contrary, residents allow themselves to doubt or even deny the hard facts of industrialpollution. This happens, the authors argue, through a labor of confusion enabled by state officials who frequently raise the issue of relocation and just as frequently suspend it; by the companies who fund local health care but assert that the area is unfit for human residence; by doctors who saythe illnesses are no different from anywhere else but tell mothers they must leave the neighborhood if their families are to be cured; by journalists who randomly appear and focus on the most extreme aspects of life there; and by lawyers who encourage residents to hold out for a settlement. Thesecontradictory actions, advice, and information work together to shape the confused experience of living in danger and ultimately translates into a long, ineffective, and uncertain waiting time, a time dictated by powerful interests and shared by all marginalized groups.With luminous and vivid descriptions of everyday life in the neighborhood, Auyero and Swistun depict this on-going slow motion human and environmental disaster and dissect the manifold ways in which it is experienced by Flammable residents.

The Brazilians


Joseph A. Page - 1995
    Page examines Brazil in the context of this current crisis and the events leading up to it. In so doing, he reveals the unique character of the Brazilian people and how this national character has brought the country to where it is today—teetering on the verge of joining the First World, or plunging into unprecedented environmental calamity and social upheaval. Not since Luigi Barzini's The Italians has a society been so deeply and accurately portrayed.

Ask a Mexican


Gustavo Arellano - 2007
    This delightfully informal QA feature reveals what every Latino and Latina already knows: That non-Hispanics face a steep learning curve about Mexicans and other New World immigrants. The collection of Arellano's columns ventures to answer all the questions that you were too embarrassed to ask about Mexican culture, lifestyle, family life, cuisine, and, of course, immigration status.

Basta!: Land And The Zapatista Rebellion In Chiapas


George A. Collier - 1994
    With a new afterword by the author about Chiapas today and its successes and failures.

Compendios Voscos: Como agua para chocolate


Francisco Gordo Ribas - 2007
    Intended as a starting point for a better understanding and appreciation of literature, each analysis also imparts information about the author, the social and historical background, structure and traditions of literary genres, facts about characters, and a bibliography to encourage further intellectual exploration. Esta colección es una herramienta indispensable para el estudio y análisis de obras clásicas de la literatura universal. Los libros de formato agradable y presentación moderna ofrecen un análisis crítico, información sobre los personajes y los géneros literarios, una bibliografía, y un compendio de la obra en particular junto a un estudio del autor y su época.

When Jesus Came, the Corn Mothers Went Away: Marriage, Sexuality, and Power in New Mexico, 1500-1846


Ramón A. Gutiérrez - 1991
    This social history of one remote corner of Spain's colonial American empire uses marriage as a window into intimate social relations, examining the Spanish conquest of America and its impact on a group of indigenous peoples, the Pueblo Indians, seen in large part from their point of view.

The Campaign


Carlos Fuentes - 1990
    The adventures of the idealistic, revolutionary son of a wealthy Argentine rancher take him through the struggles and contradictions that have plagued and ultimately shaped Spanish America.

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.

A History of Far Eastern Art


Sherman E. Lee - 1973
    Many of these new finds are included among the hundreds of reproductions.