In the early twentieth century, Peruvian intellectuals, unlike their European counterparts, rejected biological categories of race as a basis for discrimination. But this did not eliminate social hierarchies; instead, it redefined racial categories as cultural differences, such as differences in education or manners. In "Indigenous Mestizos " Marisol de la Cadena traces the history of the notion of race from this turn-of-the-century definition to a hegemony of racism in Peru.

De la Cadena s ethnographically and historically rich study examines how indigenous citizens of the city of Cuzco...

In the early twentieth century, Peruvian intellectuals, unlike their European counterparts, rejected biological categories of race as a basis for discrimination. But this did not eliminate social hierarchies; instead, it redefined racial categories as cultural differences, such as differences in education or manners. In "Indigenous Mestizos " Marisol de la Cadena traces the history of the notion of race from this turn-of-the-century definition to a hegemony of racism in Peru.

De la Cadena's ethnographically and historically rich study examines how indigenous citizens of the city of Cuzco...

Over the latter half of the twentieth century, the Guatemalan state slaughtered more than two hundred thousand of its citizens. In the wake of this violence, a vibrant pan-Mayan movement has emerged, one that is challenging Ladino (non-indigenous) notions of citizenship and national identity. In The Blood of Guatemala Greg Grandin locates the origins of this ethnic resurgence within the social processes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century state formation rather than in the ruins of the national project of recent decades.
Focusing on Mayan elites in the community of Quetzaltenango,...

Over the latter half of the twentieth century, the Guatemalan state slaughtered more than two hundred thousand of its citizens. In the wake of this violence, a vibrant pan-Mayan movement has emerged, one that is challenging Ladino (non-indigenous) notions of citizenship and national identity. In The Blood of Guatemala Greg Grandin locates the origins of this ethnic resurgence within the social processes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century state formation rather than in the ruins of the national project of recent decades.
Focusing on Mayan elites in the community of Quetzaltenango,...

In "Writing Violence on the Northern Frontier" Jose Rabasa examines the conjunction between writing and violence that defined the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Americas (particularly North America) and in doing so, he reveals why this conjunction remains relevent and influential today. Rabasa elaborates a critique of Spanish legislation that prescribed forms of converting Indians to Christianity and subjecting them to Spanish rule, which was referred to by some as "peaceful conquest." He argues that the oxymoronic nature of this term demands an oppositional mode of inquiry based...

In "Writing Violence on the Northern Frontier" Jose Rabasa examines the conjunction between writing and violence that defined the sixteenth-century Spanish conquest of the Americas (particularly North America) and in doing so, he reveals why this conjunction remains relevent and influential today. Rabasa elaborates a critique of Spanish legislation that prescribed forms of converting Indians to Christianity and subjecting them to Spanish rule, which was referred to by some as "peaceful conquest." He argues that the oxymoronic nature of this term demands an oppositional mode of inquiry based...

If colonial America was the melting pot of modernity, it was because it was also a fabulous laboratory of images. . . . Just as much as speech and writing, the image can be a vehicle for all sorts of power and resistance. So writes Serge Gruzinski in the introduction to "Images at War, "his" "striking reinterpretation of the Spanish colonization of Mexico." "Concentrating on the political meaning of the baroque image and its function within a multicultural society, Gruzinski compares its ubiquity in Mexico to our modern fascination with images and their meaning."
"Although the baroque...

This book brings back into print, for the first time since the 1830s, a text that was central to the transatlantic campaign to fully abolish slavery in Britain s colonies. James Williams, an eighteen-year-old Jamaican apprentice (former slave), came to Britain in 1837 at the instigation of the abolitionist Joseph Sturge. The "Narrative" he produced there, one of very few autobiographical texts by Caribbean slaves or former slaves, became one of the most powerful abolitionist tools for effecting the immediate end to the system of apprenticeship that had replaced slavery.
Describing the hard...

If colonial America was the melting pot of modernity, it was because it was also a fabulous laboratory of images. . . . Just as much as speech and writing, the image can be a vehicle for all sorts of power and resistance. So writes Serge Gruzinski in the introduction to "Images at War, "his" "striking reinterpretation of the Spanish colonization of Mexico." "Concentrating on the political meaning of the baroque image and its function within a multicultural society, Gruzinski compares its ubiquity in Mexico to our modern fascination with images and their meaning."
"Although the baroque...

This book brings back into print, for the first time since the 1830s, a text that was central to the transatlantic campaign to fully abolish slavery in Britain s colonies. James Williams, an eighteen-year-old Jamaican apprentice (former slave), came to Britain in 1837 at the instigation of the abolitionist Joseph Sturge. The "Narrative" he produced there, one of very few autobiographical texts by Caribbean slaves or former slaves, became one of the most powerful abolitionist tools for effecting the immediate end to the system of apprenticeship that had replaced slavery.
Describing the hard...