Kategoria BISAC: History >> Latin America - South America

"The research involved in putting this manuscript together is truly awesome and involves a major synthesis of Colombian political, economic, urban, and social history which has not been achieved to date either in Spanish or in English."-- Maurice P. Brungardt, Loyola University of New Orleans

"Henderson's life-and-times study of Laureano Gomez provides a cogent analysis of a rapidly modernizing Colombia as well as a vivid portrait of one of the most powerful 20th-century Latin American conservative thinkers and politicians."-- Jane M. Rausch, University of Massachusetts,...

In 1980, Brazil was the largest Roman Catholic country in the world, with 90 percent of its more than 120 million people numbered among the faithful. The Church hierarchy became aware, however, that the religion practiced by the majority of its members was not that promoted by the institution, a point dramatized by the rapid growth of other religious movements in Brazil--particularly Protestant sects and spirit-possession cults. In response, the Church created and assumed new roles. The Church in Brazil is a case study of the changes within the Church and their impact on...

Although the post-colonial situation has attracted considerable interest over recent years, one important colonial power - Portugal - has not been given any attention. This book is the first to explore notions of ethnicity, "race," culture, and nation in the context of the debate on colonialism and postcolonialism. The structure of the book reflects a trajectory of research, starting with a case study in Trinidad, followed by another one in Brazil, and ending with yet another one in Portugal. The three case studies, written in the ethnographic genre, are intertwined with essays of a more...

In republican Colombia, salt became an important source of revenue not just to individuals, but to the state, which levied taxes on it and in some cases controlled and profited from its production. The salt trade consistently accounted for roughly ten percent of government income.

In the town of la Salina de Chita, in Boyaca province, thermal springs offered vast amounts of salt, and its procurement and distribution was placed under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance. Focusing his study on la Salina, Joshua M. Rosenthal presents a fascinating glimpse into the workings of the...

First published in 1555, Cabeza de Vaca's narrative of his South American expeditions is a detailed account of his five years as governor of Spain's province of the Rio de la Plata in South America. Cabeza de Vaca was already a celebrated explorer by the time he went to La Plata, known for his great trek across North America in the 1520s and 1530s and for the Relaci n he wrote about that journey. His tales of his river and forest explorations in South America show that he had lost none of his early curiosity and drive. He was the great secular champion of the native peoples of the New...

While doing fieldwork in Peguche, Ecuador, Linda D'Amico found herself working with and befriending Rosa Lema, a woman who had previously worked with anthropologist Elsie Clews Parsons. One of the founding mothers of anthropology, Parsons's 1940 fieldwork in Peguche laid foundations for the development of feminist anthropology and ethnic studies. Lema, while unknown to most Americans, is an indigenous woman whose efforts to bring changes to her village and her country--most notably as ambassador for Galo Plaza's government's Cultural Mission to promote economic integration--afford a unique...

In this concise, accessible addition to Oxford's What Everyone Needs to Know(R) series, Miguel Tinker Salas -- a native of Venezuela who has written extensively about the country -- takes a broadly chronological approach that focuses especially on oil and its effects on...

Of Cannibals and Kings collects the very earliest accounts of the native peoples of the Americas, including selections from the descriptions of Columbus's first two voyages; documents reflecting the initial colonial occupation in Haiti, Venezuela, and Guyana; and the first ethnographic account of the Tainos by the missionary Ramon Pane. This primal anthropology directly guided a rapacious discovery of the lands of both wild cannibals and golden kings.