In the euphoria that followed the departure of Haiti’s hated dictator, Jean-Claude Duvalier, most Haitian and foreign analysts treated the regimes of the two Duvaliers, father and son, as a historical nightmare created by the malevolent minds of the leaders and their supporters. Yet the crisis, economic and political, that faces this small Caribbean nation did not begin with the dictatorship, and is far from being solved, despite its departure from the scene. In this fascinating study, Haitian-born Michel-Rolph Trouillot examines the mechanisms through which the Duvaliers ruthlessly won and then held onto power for twenty-nine years. | more…
This essay on Puerto Rico analyzes the deepening crisis in American capitalism and how it inevitably affects Puerto Rico. Essentially, Lewis asks and seeks to answer three questions: What is the nature of Puerto Rican society after a decade of dramatic and traumatic change? What should be the strategy of freedom? What can be, ought to be, the nature of the new Puerto Rican society, once it is released from American rule? | more…
Within a year after the triumphal entry into Havana at the beginning of 1959, Che Guevara began to set down the history of the guerrilla war. Fearful that the events would “dissolve into the past” and that an important part of the history of America would be lost, he urged other leaders of the Revolution to do the same, asking only “that the narrator be strictly truthful.” | more…
In my opinion, American capitalism no longer has any use for, let’s say, 40 percent of the population. These are the descendants of folks who were brought over here in one way or another during the period of capital accumulation. They’re now superfluous human beings. | more…
Mexico’s Hope tells the dramatic story of the making of modern Mexico. In the course of providing compelling analysis of the causes for the vast divide between Mexico’s rich and poor, James Cockcroft illuminates the stark contrast between the country’s corrupt political system and its people’s democratic aspirations. | more…
This collection offers the best scholarly work emerging at the intersection of gender theory and Latin American studies. The essays analyze the gendered politics of state power, language, culture, history, social movements, human rights, and knowledge. Outstanding scholars and activists map the debates that have broken new and fertile ground in Latin American gender studies, criticizing short-comings and speculating on future directions. In their examination of everyday struggles over gender politics, the contributors illustrate the link between political action and conceptual debates. Innovative and challenging, this book will generate discussion in a wide range of fields. | more…
Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx. | more…
Since the 1994 uprisings in the Mexican state of Chiapas, the spokesman of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, a masked rebel who calls himself Subcomandante Marcos, has become a symbol of revolt in the post-cold war era. Here are the words of Marcos—letters, stories for children, military communiqués, demands, poems, descriptions of colonial exploitation, travelogues, history lessons, spoofs of magic realism, subtle jokes, and inspiring anecdotes—which recast Mexican politics and revived rebel imaginations everywhere. They look backward to the traditions of Indian resistance and the dominant ideals of the Mexican revolution; they look forward to political strategies, styles, and theories that challenge the dominance of capitalism. The wit, anger, irony, and eloquence of these letters and communiqués document how history is being made after “the end of history.” | more…
In Out of the Shadows, author Jo Fisher interviews women in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay to show how they have moved into the vacuum left by the military’s destruction of the male-dominated left. Chapters describe how women have organised—in communal kitchens in Chile’s shantytowns, as trade unionists in Uruguay, peace activists in Paraguay, mothers of the disappeared and self-help groups in Argentina, as grassroots feminists in Chile—ending the isolation of home life. | more…
Loosely based on the Haitian slave insurrection of 1791, Babouk is a biting account of colonialism at its peak. By using the imagination of the novelist to fill in the gaps in the historical record, Endore is able to show us how slavery felt to the slaves who experienced it. His novel is rare for its depiction of the shared history of the slaves and its attention to the variety of the slave experience. It provides the reader with a vivid history of Haiti and a compelling account of slavery and rebellion. | more…
When Bernardo Vega arrived in New York from Puerto Rico in 1916, he was at the forefront of a migrant stream that was soon to become a flood. His memoirs—perceptive, lively, and politically aware—provide us with a unique and often humorous firsthand account of the life of an immigrant, as well as of the concerns and activities of the Puerto Rican community in New York in the period between the wars. | more…
