Throughout the 1920s Mexico was rocked by attempted coups, assassinations, and popular revolts. Yet by the mid-1930s, the country boasted one of the most stable and durable political systems in Latin America. In the first book on party formation conducted at the regional level after the Mexican Revolution, Sarah Osten examines processes of political and social change that eventually gave rise to the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which dominated Mexico's politics for the rest of the twentieth century. In analyzing the history of socialist parties in the southeastern states of Campeche, Chiapas, Tabasco, and Yucatán, Osten demonstrates that these 'laboratories of revolution' constituted a highly influential testing ground for new political traditions and institutional structures. The Mexican Revolution's Wake shows how the southeastern socialists provided a blueprint for a new kind of party that struck calculated balances between the objectives of elite and popular forces
Corruption is one of the most prominent issues in Latin American news cycles, with charges deciding the recent elections in Mexico, Brazil, and Guatemala. Despite the urgency of the matter, few recent historical studies on the topic exist, especially on Mexico. For this reason, Christoph Rosenmüller explores the enigma of historical corruption. By drawing upon thorough archival research and a multi-lingual collection of printed primary sources and secondary literature, Rosenmüller demonstrates how corruption in the past differed markedly from today. Corruption in Mexico's colonial period connoted the obstruction of justice; judges, for example, tortured prisoners to extract cash or accepted bribes to alter judicial verdicts. In addition, the concept evolved over time to include several forms of self-advantage in the bureaucracy. Rosenmüller embeds this important shift from judicial to administrative corruption within the changing Atlantic World, while also providing insightful
Corruption is one of the most prominent issues in Latin American news cycles, with charges deciding the recent elections in Mexico, Brazil, and Guatemala. Despite the urgency of the matter, few recent historical studies on the topic exist, especially on Mexico. For this reason, Christoph Rosenmüller explores the enigma of historical corruption. By drawing upon thorough archival research and a multi-lingual collection of printed primary sources and secondary literature, Rosenmüller demonstrates how corruption in the past differed markedly from today. Corruption in Mexico's colonial period connoted the obstruction of justice; judges, for example, tortured prisoners to extract cash or accepted bribes to alter judicial verdicts. In addition, the concept evolved over time to include several forms of self-advantage in the bureaucracy. Rosenmüller embeds this important shift from judicial to administrative corruption within the changing Atlantic World, while also providing insightful
The streets of Rio de Janeiro have long been characterized as exuberant and exotic places for social commerce, political expression, and the production and dissemination of culture. The Street is Ours examines the changing uses and meanings of Rio de Janeiro's streets and argues that the automobile, by literally occupying much of the street's space and by introducing death and injury on a new scale, significantly transformed the public commons. Once viewed as a natural resource and a place of equitable access, deep meaning, and diverse functions, the street has changed into a space of exclusion that prioritizes automotive movement. Taking an environmental approach, Shawn William Miller surveys the costs and failures of this spatial transformation and demonstrates how Rio's citizens have resisted the automobile's intrusions and, in some cases, even reversed the long trend of closing the street against its potential utilities.
Why did José de León Toral kill Álvaro Obregón, leader of the Mexican Revolution? So far, historians have characterized the motivations of the young Catholic militant as the fruit of fanaticism. This book offers new insights on how diverse sectors experienced the aftermath of the Revolution by exploring the religious, political, and cultural contentions of the 1920s. Far from an isolated fanatic, León Toral represented a generation of Mexicans who believed that the revolution had unleashed ancient barbarism, sinful consumerism, and anticlerical tyranny. Facing attacks against the Catholic essence of Mexican nationalism, they emphasized asceticism, sacrifice, and the redemptive potential of violence. Their reckless enthusiasm to launch assaults was a sign of their devotion. León Toral insisted that 'only God' was his accomplice; in fact, he was cheered by thousands who dreamed of bringing the Kingdom of Christ to beleaguered Mexico.
This book covers the economic history of Latin America from independence in the 1820s to the present. It stresses the differences between Latin American countries while recognizing the similar extern
Mexico is home to some of the world’s most extraordinary folk art, and the majority of its highly acclaimed pieces were created by women. Looking closely at eight types of Mexican folk art, including
Linking the racially divided working class of modern Brazil to the period of abolition, Baronov argues that certain abolition strategies resulted in capital/labor relations that were characterized by
This book analyzes the most important geohydrological aspects of the San Jorge Gulf Basin (Chubut and Santa Cruz provinces, Argentine Patagonia), with a particular focus on the physical and hydrodynam
In this book, John Kraniauskas uses close examinations of a number of modern and contemporary Latin American and North American novels and films to highlight the relationship between such texts and th
While many scholars have been interested in the size of the Indian population of the Americas at the time of first contact with Europeans, this book is the first to make a thorough examination of the
The Atlantic slave trade brought to Cuba the African slaves who created the dramatic transformation of the island from a relative backwater of Spain's colonial empire in the mid-eighteenth century to
This book explores the mediated struggles for autonomy, land rights and social justice in a context of growing authoritarianism and persistent coloniality in Nicaragua. To do so, it draws on in-depth
The analysis of gender and political inequality, and the women's movements that have contested it, has concentrated on the West. In this wide-ranging reevaluation, incorporating development studies an
Using the case of the Chixoy Hydroelectric Dam in Guatemala, constructed between 1978 and 1983, this book examines the effects of displacement on the former residents of Río Negro, a community forcibl
This book describes the pottery trade activities of the residents of the community of San Bartolomé de los Olleros in Piura, Peru. Based on extensive interviews with potters and traders, it explains w
The book focuses on the human and social effects of the construction of hydroelectric dams in Brazil. It discusses themes such as forced migrations, how the families of the victims of the dams adapt t
Latin America is one of the most violent regions in the world. It has suffered waves of repressive authoritarian rule, organized armed insurgency and civil war, violent protest, and ballooning rates o
Beginning with Volume 41 (1979), the University of Texas Press became the publisher of the Handbook of Latin American Studies, the most comprehensive annual bibliography in the field. Compiled by the
Gender studies of Spain has thus far focused almost exclusively on women, leaving the social and political history of male homosexuality virtually untouched. 'Los Invisibles' fills this significant ga
