During the wars for independence in Spanish South America (1808-1826), thousands of slaves enlisted under the promise of personal freedom and, in some cases, freedom for other family members. Blacks were recruited by opposing sides in these conflicts and their loyalties rested with whomever they believed would emerge victorious. The prospect of freedom was worth risking one's life for, and wars against Spain presented unprecedented opportunities to attain it.

Much hedging over the slavery issue continued, however, even after the patriots came to power. The prospect of abolition threatened...

Examines the negotiations over women's rights and the politics of gender in Chile throughout the twentieth century. Centering her study on motherhood, Pieper Mooney explores dramatic changes in health policy, population paradigms, and understandings of human rights, and reveals that motherhood is hardly a private matter defined only by individual women or couples. Instead, it is intimately tied to public policies and political competitions on nation-state and international levels.

After the revolutionary period of 1910-1920, Mexico developed a number of social protection programs to support workers in public and private sectors and to establish safeguards for the poor and the aged. These included pensions, healthcare, and worker's compensation. The new welfare programs were the product of a complex interrelationship of corporate, labor, and political actors. In this unique dynamic, cross-class coalitions maintained both an authoritarian regime and social protection system for some seventy years, despite the ebb and flow of political and economic tides.
By focusing...

Bonsal combines his memoirs of his experiences in Havana with an analysis of the relationship between Cuba and the United States both during the Batista and Castro regimes and during the earlier history of the Cuban Republic.
His discussion of Castro's personality is incisive, portraying the Maximum Leader's increasing animosity toward the United States until the final break-off of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Bonsal's observations of Castro and the sociopolitical climate in Cuba are perhaps the most incisive and accurate of any to date on the subject.
All the...

A comprehensive study of the relationship between social security policy and inequality in Latin America. Individual case studies of Chile, Uruguay, Peru, Argentina, and Mexico are presented, that provide a historical analysis of social security policy, the pressure groups involved, the present structure of the systems, and a statistical examination of the inequality among these pressure groups.

Although Juan Peron changed the course of modern Argentine history, scholars have often interpreted him in terms of their own ideologies and interests, rather than seeing the effect of this man and his movement had on the Argentine people. The essays in this volume seek to uncover the man behind the myth, to define the true nature of Peronism. Several chapters view Peron's rise to power, his deposition and eighteen-year exile, and his dramtic return in 1973. Others examine: opposing forces in modern Argentina, including the church and its role in politics; the conflict between landed...

Winner of the Arthur P. Whitaker Prize as "the best book in Latin American Studies in 1990-1991

Mexico's colonial experience had left a bitter legacy. Many believed that only the physical removal of the old colonial elite could allow the creation of a new political and economic order. While expulsion seemed to provide the answer, the expulsion decrees met stiff resistance and caused a tug-of-war between enforcement and evasion that went on for years. Friendship, family influence, intrigue, and bribery all played a role in determining who left and who stayed. After years of struggle, the...

This book introduces to a larger audience the work of a group of Mexican writers whose work reflects the stimulus of the boom of the 1960s, especially in the experimental nueva novella.
Duncan views the work of six writers in the context of more well known writers of the period (Ruflo, Fuentes, and Del Paso), and concludes with a chapter on other recent innovators in Mexican literature. Despite their diversity, these texts share many common features, and unlike social realism, the works are not openly political, but at the same time they question assumptions about reality itself-and the...

The industrial development of Ecuador has made fortunes for some, but has largely bypassed the general population. Armed by its new power, the bourgeoisie has captured sate mechanisms for its own advancement, leading to the paradox of a democratic authoritarianism. In this study, Catherine M. Conaghan views the crucial differences between the social and economic changes in newly developed Latin American nations and those of the southern cone. Using Ecuador as her case study, she shows how industrial growth has given birth to an exclusive, ingrown bourgeoisie that is highly dependent on the...