Customer Reviews (2)

amazing tula
the info in this book may be out of date, but the pics can't be beat and the book can be used for general info. when studying meso american cultures, the toltecs are necessary to know about, making this book a must have. necessary for the understading of the maya merge that was to come.

great archaeological writing
Wow, what a great book.It turns a potentially boring and poorly researched subject into a very nice synthesis of excavation reports and ethnohistorical documents.So little was and is known about Tula and the Toltecs, yet the author manages to make it a very good read.I could not put it down, and read it in a day.Good work in translating tedious archaeological findings reports into readable prose.Good maps, and great photographs.Its this kind of stuff that archaeologists should produce more often so anybody can understand us. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Diverse Issues in Higher Education, published by Cox, Matthews & Associates on February 18, 2010. The length of the article is 1319 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Overcoming negrophobia: Latin Americans struggle to come to terms with racial identity.(noteworthy news)
Author: Arelis Hernandez
Publication: Diverse Issues in Higher Education (Magazine/Journal)
Date: February 18, 2010
Publisher: Cox, Matthews & Associates
Volume: 27Issue: 1Page: 5(2)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

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Why is it that Japan, with few natural resources, has become one of the world's leading economies but not Latin America, which is so rich in natural resources? This anthropological essay questions the Euro-centric notion of modernity and modernization and argues that Latin America has to find its own form of modernity, one which accepts and reflects its owntraditions. As long as a Western Model is grafted on to Latin American societies, modernization is bound to fail. After examining the history and peculiarities of these societies and their cultures, from the pre-Colombian era to the present, the author develops what could become the framework for a future, "indigenous" model. ... Read more

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The transcultural impact of Latin American musical forms in the United States calls for a deeper understanding of the shifting cultural meanings of music. Musical Migrations examines the tensions between the value of Latin popular music as a metaphor for national identity and its transnational meanings as it traverses national borders, geocultural spaces, audiences, and historical periods. The anthology addresses the role of popular music in Caribbean diasporas in the US and Europe; the trans-Caribbean identities of Salsa and reggae; the racial, cultural, and ethnic hybridity in rock across the Americas; and the tensions between tradition and modernity in Peruvian indigenous music, mariachi music in the United States, and Trinidadian music.
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A Complex, But Vital Update for Ethnomusicology in Latin America
I am using this book as one of four textbooks in an Ethnomusicology in Latin America course I am teaching in Spring 2008. I found that the introduction was enough to convince me the book has significant value in today's arguments over which country "owns" the "rights" to which style of music, such as the great Salsa Debate between Cuba and Puerto Rico. In Chapter 2 the author of the article looks at Cuban culture in the post-revolutionary period and the differences between music in Cuba, and the music of the Miami exile community. There are important differences and the political messages are boiled down, but I could not help but notice a slight "whitewashing" approach to the Afro-Cuban identity and cultural contributions. Chapter 3 examines the influences of Puerto Rican Salsa on Venezuelan gives compelling evidence of which musicians in various genres influenced eachother, and concludes that while Cuba tends to dominate cultural influence, parallel traditions also need to be considered. Chapter 4 examines the African linguistic contributions to the Caribbean and African Diaspora, a work that owes much to the pioneering style of Robert Farris Thompson. The author takes the reader to Paris, France and reveals how cultural attitudes cansometimes mar legitimate contributions made by ethnic minorities. Other articles throughout the book study rock and roll influences and also the history of mariachi music. Overall this is an important, modern contribution to the growing bofy of work in Latin American musical studies. At times the technical music terminology can
be confusing if the reader is not well-versed in music theory, but overall this is a significant contribution suitable for upper level undergraduate and graduate courses alike. While it is definately not "light" reading, it is highly informative and presents many new views to old themes. I am curious to see what Volume 2 has in store if or when it is published. ... Read more

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Latin American Thought aims at showing that there is a body of interesting philosophical arguments offered by Latin Americans concerning issues that have arisen in Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking parts of the New World. It examines questions of rationality, gender discrimination, justice, human rights, reparation for historically dispossessed peoples, and relativism vs. universalism--all matters of continuing concern in Latin American thought, from its earliest stirrings to the present day. And among some specific issues that have generated heated controversies from the early twentieth century to the present, the book explores how Latin Americans and their descendants abroad think of their own cultural identity, their critique of US mass-culture and philosophy, and the vexing problem of which name, if any, is the correct one to use to refer to all of this exceedingly diverse ethnic group. ... Read more

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a helpful book
There is litle written of worth in English for beginning college students about Latin American philosophy. LATIN AMERICAN THOUGHT is one of the few secondary texts available to help sort out some of the issues surrounding pre-conquest, colonial, positivist, and post-positivist thought in this vast region. I'm not sure what the earlier reviewer had in mind regarding Nuccetelli supposedly being "condescending"; Nuccetelli's presentation of a concern over the apparent irrationality of the continued acceptance by one pre-conquest people of verifiably false claims was interesting and handled with an academic rigour appropriate for an introductory text. I say this as a philosophy instructor still seeking the "ideal" text for a freshman Latin American Philosophy class in Washington State.

This deserves no stars
I wonder if Nuccetelli was aware of how condescending she sounds at the beginning of the book. The book annoyed most of my class that it was quickly disregarded and hardly touched on.

She didn't have any points and when she tried to say something it was as if she had nothing to add, or couldn't explain her findings. I suggest that any class trying to teach Latin American Thought should stray away from Nuccetelli's book. ... Read more

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This new book examines the social protests of popular groups in urban Mexico during and after the Mexican Revolution and also shows how the revolution inspired women to become activists in these movements. Andrew Grant Wood’s well-researched narrative focuses specifically on the complex negotiation between elites and popular groups over the issue of public housing in post-revolutionary Veracruz, Mexico.Wood then compares the Veracruz experience with other tenant movements throughout Mexico and Latin America.He analyzes what the popular groups wanted, what they got, how they got it, and how the changes wrought by the revolution facilitated their actions.Grassroots organizing by house-renters in Veracruz began at a time of “multiple sovereignty” when ruling elites found themselves in a process of regime change and political realignment.As the movement took shape, tenants expanded their opportunities through a dynamic repertoire of public demonstration, direct action, networking, and constant negotiation with landlords and public officials.During the height of the movement, protesters forced revolutionary elites to respond by requiring them either to negotiate, co-opt, and/or repress members of independent grassroots organizations in order to maintain their rule.The tenant movements demonstrate how ordinary women and men contributed to the remaking of state and civil society relations in post-revolutionary Mexico.Revolution in the Street analyzes the critical roles that women played as leaders and as rank-and-file agitators to keep the movements alive.The author has used a wide variety of primary sources to provide a vibrant portrayal of these urban social protesters.On a larger scale, this book shows that the voices of the urban poor were able to become part of the revolutionary dialogue and ideology.While others have highlighted the role of rural folk such as the Zapatistas, this work allows readers to appreciate the urban side of the popular movement.Revolution in the Street is a valuable resource on the Mexican Revolution, modern Mexico, and urban history of Latin America. ... Read more

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This book shows how Zapotec peasants migrating to Mexico City utilize paisanazgo--which prescribes solidarity among people from the same locale--as the basis for cooperation and mutual aid within a new environment. This study focuses on three groups of Mountain Zapotecs to explain why migrant associations were created and why they took different forms, citing regional variations in ethnicity, solidarity, occupational pursuits, and sociopolitical articulation to the nation in the three points of origin. ... Read more

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politics, identity and popular culture
If you can't tell the difference between Tejano music and Nortena, you will know the difference by the end of this book. The author really spells out the difference and explains it in terms clear enough for non-musicians like me. The high point of the book is when the author walks us through a comparison of the same corrido as performed and recorded by Ramon Ayala y sus Bravos del Norte (Nortenos!) and by Los Dos Gilbertos (Tejanos!).

Overall, the theme of Tejano versus Norteno structures the book. The author gives a solid social history of how the two music styles developed side-by-side, as parallel styles but representing distinct social allegiances. This analytic framework makes for a very coherent study of popular culture as a reflection of identity and political position. This seems like a Gramsci-inspired study of "style wars" in popular culture, waged between the followers of Tejano music and the followers of Nortena. However, the author never mentions Gramsci nor Stuart Hall for that matter.

The upshot of the book is that Nortena wins--the biggest fan base, the most bands, and the widest network of listeners on both sides of the border. The author's data is mostly limited to interviews with musicians, fans, composers, music promoters, record company execs, and other music insiders, but she nevertheless does deliver solid analysis of the cultural and social dimensions of international migration that enabled nortena to oust tejano.

On the downside, the author could have (should have?) discussed some of the other aspects of the style wars, such as dance styles (quebradita vs duranguense?) and clothing styles (cholo vs vaquero?) which would have made her social analysis pack more punch. Although she's an ethnomusicologist, her knowledge of nortena culture seems extensive enough that she could enlighten us on some aspects of the culture that are not strictly musical.

Also, she gives the reader the impression that the whole story ends with Los Tigres del Norte as the pinnacle of Nortena. However, a cursory look at the world wide web shows that many people now classify los Tigres as "cursi" and they have moved on to a new trend called "duranguense." The author could have brought us up to date a bit more than she did. ... Read more

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When Indian communities of Chiapas, Mexico, rose in armed rebellion in 1994, they spoke boldly of values, rights, identities, and expectations.Their language struck a chord for most Mexicans, for it was the cultural legacy of the Revolution of 1910. Of all the accomplishments of the Mexican Revolution, its cultural achievements were among its most important.The Revolution's cultural politics accounts in part for the relative political stability Mexico enjoyed from 1940 through 1993 and underlies much of the discourse accompanying the tumultuous transitions in that country today.To show the significance of this facet of the Revolution, Mary Kay Vaughan here analyzes the educational effort of the state during the 1930s, locating it within the broader sweep of Mexican history to illustrate how the government sought to nationalize and modernize rural society. Vaughan focuses on activities in rural schools, where central state policy makers, teachers, and people of the countryside came together to forge a national culture.She examines the cultural politics of schooling in four rural societies in the states of Sonora and Puebla that are representative of the peasant societies in revolutionary Mexico, and she shows how the state's program of socialist education became an arena for intense negotiations over power, culture, knowledge, rights, and gender practices. The real cultural revolution, Vaughan observes, lay not in the state's efforts at socialist education but in the dialogue between state and society that took place around this program.In the 1930s, rural communities carved out a space to preserve their local identities while the state succeeded in nurturing a multi-ethnic nationalism based on its promise of social justice and development. Vaughan brings to her analysis a comparative understanding of peasant politics and educational history, extensive interviews, and a detailed examination of national, regional, and local archives to create an evocative and informative study of Mexican politics and society during modern Mexico's formative years.Cultural Politics in Revolution clearly shows that only by expanding the social arena in which culture was constructed and contested can we understand the Mexican Revolution's real achievements. ... Read more

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Nation building through cultural politics
Mary Kay Vaughan examines post revolutionary Mexico and its goals of nation building and modernization in Cultural Politics in Revolution. As the title implicates, culture was (and still) is integral to nationbuilding in Mexico.Vaughan examines the central role of the school infour rural areas, two in Puebla and two in Sonora.Using these four areasas examples, Vaughan is able to demonstrate that post revolutionary Mexicowas able to nation build through hegemony between the state and the ruralsociety, therein lies her thesis.The cultural achievements of the MexicanRevolution lie within its negotiated settlement between the government andthe people.Each case study provides a different look on how negotiationsbetween the state and peasants affected policies within each region andwithin Mexico.Using a post-revisionist look at the Mexican Revolution,Vaughan shows how cultural politics affected specific regions and how thiswas able to nationalize some of the Mexican people, but not all of themIt is important to preface this review by stating that Mexico was ashattered state during and after the Revolution.Internal conflicts hadmarred the hope of building a strong centralized Mexico.In 1921, theSecretaria de Educacion Publica (referred to as the SEP) was created. TheSEP established rural schools as venues for harnessing the spirit ofrebellious peasants in the 1930s and '40s, therefore turning these schoolsinto locations where the state could enact social change within each ruralarea (4).The SEP trained and sent out teachers to teach these ruralvillages lessons that were within the constraints of what the SEP wantedthe Mexican people to know, including reading, writing, and basic skills.Each educator was responsible for learning about the village that he (andvery rarely, she) taught in, so that he or she could report to the SEP onthe state of the area. Traditional subjects were not the only part of thecurriculum, the SEP intended to build nationalism through education, usingteachers as their own personal agents.In many areas, these teachersbecame loyal to their villages, taking upon their shoulders the burdens ofthe community, in an attempt to express how the government could bettersuit the rural village.A relationship of negotiations developed betweenthe government and the rural villages and teachers played a critical rolein the hegemony created between peasant and government.It is important torealize that there were three stages involved in each negotiation: peasantsto teacher, teacher to governor, and governor to central government.Theteacher became the go-between for the people and the governor, while stilleducating the children of the village. The first rural areaconsidered by Vaughan is Tecamachalco, Puebla.Tecamachalco's peasants hadall been mestisized by the centuries of Spanish interaction (77).Thepeople were dependant upon agriculture, so land reform had been a key issueto the peasants during the Revolution.Heated negotiations between theTecamachalquenos and the government resulted in differing opinions on therole of school and culture.Literacy rates continued to drop from alreadylow numbers.Education was in need, but what differed between these twobutting heads was the amount of state interaction and intervention in theeducation given to the community.A school was eventually created, builtthrough negotiations made between the community and the state.This schoolwould not only become a place where the three R's were taught, but would bea place for the people to voice their concerns about agrarian reform.TheSEP teachers were state agents and the people felt that if they were ableto speak to the teachers, then perhaps their voices would be heard in thegovernment. Their voices were heard.The negotiations of the 1930sfor land reform and agricultural modernization found success in the 1940s(101).Improvements within the school in terms of material demands andwithin the community (in terms of industrialization of fruit trees) werenow possibilities, not just hopeless demands.In this respect, Vaughangives insight into the role that teachers played in this linkage.Teachersfound themselves becoming more aligned with the needs of the community andless with the demands of the government, considering themselves the heartof the people.The rural villages were able to construct a school whichreinforced a peasant disposition and community decision making, whileintegrating a national, civil society into the state building project ofpost revolutionary Mexico (101, 105). Zacapoaxtla, the second ruralarea examined by Vaughan, was much different from Tecamachalco. Zacapoaxtlans were a large indigenous population, more pious, and lessconcerned with agrarian reform than the Tecamachalquenos (107).But likeTecamachalco, negotiations between the state and the people surrounded andintegrated the school. The Zacapoaxtlans wanted less state domination andthe state wanted community initiated change within the area (107).Vaughandivided this area into three tiers, based upon their location (south,central and north).Each tier had its own demands from the state.Whereasthe southern tier wanted tax exemption because their land was unproductive,the central, middle tier who was conservative, wanted protection fromanti-clerical legislation, privatization of communal land, and Liberaltroop levies (109).The northern tier, like the central tier, retainedmany more elites than the southern tier, so the goals of the community werebuilt around what the elites demanded. Throughout the 1920s and`30s, the state was unable to gain much ground within Zacapoaxtla. Tensions between elites and villagers and elites and middle class familiesaffected the negotiations between the state and the people.Socialisteducation had been adopted by the SEP, which entailed the teaching ofsubjects like reading through concepts of class struggle, exploitation, andsurplus value (119).With such problems between classes, the teachersfound themselves trying to stabilize a class warfare, negotiating betweentheir goals and the goals of each class.Unfortunately, the elites usedsocialist education against the teachers, casting the SEP project as evil,which flared up Catholic resistence to the educators.What resulted wasthe death (by hacking) of three teachers and the destruction of a localschool.Parents took their children out of classes and teachers no longerhad students to teach.Vaughan suggests that in some of the villages inthis area, the only way SEP teachers were allowed to continue was if theyadjusted their teaching to fit more into what the community wanted and notwhat the government wanted, neglecting the give and take relationship thatthe government had attempted to build. The second state examined byVaughan, Sonora, also had a difficult situation on its hands.Socialisteducators feared that if they challenged the role of religion, the resultwould be a large scale rebellion (137).The Yaqui Indians of Sonora hadbeen fierce in defending their valley from the state and capitalistdevelopers (137).In the mid 1930s, negotiations began between the stateand the Yaquis, worked toward giving the tribe more authority and more landwhile building schools and infrastructure which would transform their lives(138).Although it appears as if the government was handing autonomy tothe tribe, this could not be further from the truth, if the governmentcould get hold of the region through development and establishment ofschools, negotiations between the Yaquis and the state would eventuallyresult in national control of the region, eliminating their ability torevolt.

Highly literate (in fact the most literate of the four areasexamined), the Yaquis had quite a few options on the reconstruction oftheir society upon negotiations between the tribe and the state.TheRestorationists, a division within the tribe that became prevalent due toits support by the President, were empowered by Cardenas.However, thegovernment saw the problem with the Yaquis as something that could becontrolled through material goods, such as schools, land and economicresources, leading the state to believe that once the material goods weretaken care of, the Yaquis would be fully integrated into Mexican society(151).Unlike the three other areas examined in Vaughan, the state had amuch more difficult time trying to force patriotism and nationalism onthese people.The SEP schools failed to draw in the Yaqui student.Theteachers neglected the needs of the Yaqui student by not learning theirlanguage and not attempting to build relationships between the school andthe community.What resulted was an agreement between the Yaquis and thecentral government that allowed the Yaqui Indians to maintain a separateidentity in Mexico, as long as their identity did not interfere with themodernization of Mexico (157).In decades after the `30s and `40, theYaquis have maintained a relationship based on recognizing the centralgovernment and many of ... Read more

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Drama! Excess! Men in bee suits! Often erroneously compared to soap operas of the United States, outside of the necessary and sometimes fantastical dramatic story arc, however, the telenovela differs greatly from U.S. soap operas and have regional and cultural distinctions throughout Latin America. In Telenovelas, Ilan Stavans has gathered over two-dozen essays covering the telenovela for readers to better understand the phenomenon and its myriad layers.

Branching off from radionovelas, the telenovela was exported from pre-Castro Cuba during the 1950s. The essays found in Telenovelas covers a broad view of the genre, television's impact in Latino culture, as well as more in-depth discussions of specific telenovelas throughout the Spanish-speaking television audience in the North America. Also explored is how telenovelas depict stereotypes, respond to gender and class roles, and examines the differences in topic and thematic choices as well as production values unique to each country.

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In three volumes of expert, innovative scholarship, Literary Cultures of Latin America offers a multidisciplinary reference on one of the most distinctive literary cultures in the world. In topically arranged articles written by a team of international scholars, Literary Cultures of Latin America explores the shifting problems that have arisen across national borders, geographic regions, time periods, linguistic systems, and cultural traditions in literary history.

Bucking the tradition of focusing almost exclusively on the great canons of literature, this unique reference work casts its net wider, exploring pop culture, sermons, scientific essays, and more. While collaborators are careful to note that these volumes offer only a snapshot of the diverse body of Latin American literature, Literary Cultures of Latin America highlights unique cultural perspectives that have never before received academic attention. Comprised of signed articles each with complete bibliographies, this unique reference also takes into account relevant political, anthropological, economic, geographic, historical, demographic, and sociological research in order to understand the full context of each community's literature.

The largest comparative history project in the world with unprecedented, original scholarship, Literary Cultures of Latin America creates a new chapter in cultural history that sets the standard for years to come. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Superb
I've only had a couple of hours to dig into this one, but my initial impressions are that this is an intelligent, comprehensive set of books that manage to be both scholarly and readable. This is a aggressively cross-curricular piece of work, featuring analyses that are, by turns, historical, sociological, strictly literary, economic/political and, may the Gods be praised, often quirky and individual.

I was also happy to see that Brazil wasn't neglected!

The volumes are nicely organized, bound like heavy bricks, and contain many helpful b&w illustrations. ... Read more