Cuba is often perceived in starkly black and white terms either as the site of one of Latin America s most successful revolutions or as the bastion of the world s last communist regime. "The Cuba Reader" multiplies perspectives on the nation many times over, presenting more than one hundred selections about Cuba s history, culture, and politics. Beginning with the first written account of the island, penned by Christopher Columbus in 1492, the selections assembled here track Cuban history from the colonial period through the ascendancy of Fidel Castro to the present.
"The Cuba Reader"...
Cuba is often perceived in starkly black and white terms either as the site of one of Latin America s most successful revolutions or as the bastion of...
Long characterized as an exceptional country within Latin America, Costa Rica has been hailed as a democratic oasis in a continent scorched by dictatorship and revolution; the ecological mecca of a biosphere laid waste by deforestation and urban blight; and an egalitarian, middle-class society blissfully immune to the violent class and racial conflicts that have haunted the region. Arguing that conceptions of Costa Rica as a happy anomaly downplay its rich heritage and diverse population, "The Costa Rica Reader" brings together texts and artwork that reveal the complexity of the country s...
Long characterized as an exceptional country within Latin America, Costa Rica has been hailed as a democratic oasis in a continent scorched by dictato...
Sixteenth-century Spanish soldiers described Peru as a land filled with gold and silver, a place of untold wealth. Nineteenth-century travelers wrote of soaring Andean peaks plunging into luxuriant Amazonian canyons of orchids, pythons, and jaguars. The early-twentieth-century American adventurer Hiram Bingham told of the raging rivers and the wild jungles he traversed on his way to rediscovering the Lost City of the Incas, Machu Picchu. Seventy years later, news crews from ABC and CBS traveled to Peru to report on merciless terrorists, starving peasants, and Colombian drug runners in the...
Sixteenth-century Spanish soldiers described Peru as a land filled with gold and silver, a place of untold wealth. Nineteenth-century travelers wrote ...
Encompassing Amazonian rainforests, Andean peaks, coastal lowlands, and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador s geography is notably diverse. So too are its history, culture, and politics, all of which are examined from many perspectives in "The Ecuador Reader." Spanning the years before the arrival of the Spanish in the early 1500s to the present, this rich anthology addresses colonialism, independence, the nation s integration into the world economy, and its tumultuous twentieth century. Interspersed among forty-eight written selections are more than three dozen images.
The voices and creations...
Encompassing Amazonian rainforests, Andean peaks, coastal lowlands, and the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador s geography is notably diverse. So too are its ...
This reader brings together more than 200 texts and images in a broad introduction to Guatemala's history, culture, and politics. In choosing the selections, the editors sought to avoid representing the country only in terms of its long experience of conflict, racism, and violence. And so, while offering many perspectives on that violence, this anthology portrays Guatemala as a real place where people experience joys and sorrows that cannot be reduced to the contretemps of resistance and repression. It includes not only the opinions of politicians, activists, and scholars, but also poems,...
This reader brings together more than 200 texts and images in a broad introduction to Guatemala's history, culture, and politics. In choosing the sele...
Hemmed in by the vast, arid Chaco to the west and, for most of its history, impenetrable jungles to the east, Paraguay has been defined largely by its isolation. Partly as a result, there has been a dearth of serious scholarship or journalism about the country. Going a long way toward redressing this lack of information and analysis, The Paraguay Reader is a lively compilation of testimonies, journalism, scholarship, political tracts, literature, and illustrations, including maps, photographs, paintings, drawings, and advertisements. Taken together, the anthology's many selections...
Hemmed in by the vast, arid Chaco to the west and, for most of its history, impenetrable jungles to the east, Paraguay has been defined largely by its...
The Chile Reader makes available a rich variety of documents spanning more than five hundred years of Chilean history. Most of the selections are by Chileans; many have never before appeared in English. The history of Chile is rendered from diverse perspectives, including those of Mapuche Indians and Spanish colonists, peasants and aristocrats, feminists and military strongmen, entrepreneurs and workers, and priests and poets. Among the many selections are interviews, travel diaries, letters, diplomatic cables, cartoons, photographs, and song lyrics.
Texts and images, each...
The Chile Reader makes available a rich variety of documents spanning more than five hundred years of Chilean history. Most of the selections a...
Despite its significance in the history of Spanish colonialism, the Dominican Republic is familiar to most outsiders through only a few elements of its past and culture. Non-Dominicans may be aware that the country shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti and that it is where Christopher Columbus chose to build a colony. Some may know that the country produces talented baseball players and musicians; others that it is a prime destination for beach vacations. Little else about the Dominican Republic is common knowledge outside its borders. This Reader seeks to change that. It provides an...
Despite its significance in the history of Spanish colonialism, the Dominican Republic is familiar to most outsiders through only a few elements of it...
