Samuel Farber, The Origins of the Cuban Revolution Reconsidered.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006.  ISBN: 9780807830017.  List Price: $49.95 (Cloth).  ISBN: 9780807856734.  List Price: $19.95 (Paper)

Analyzing the crucial period of the Cuban Revolution from 1959 to 1961, Samuel Farber challenges dominant scholarly and popular views of the revolution's sources, shape, and historical trajectory. Unlike many observers, who treat Cuba's revolutionary leaders as having merely reacted to U.S. policies or domestic socioeconomic conditions, Farber shows that revolutionary leaders, while acting under serious constraints, were nevertheless autonomous agents pursuing their own independent ideological visions, although not necessarily according to a master plan.

Exploring how historical conflicts between U.S. and Cuban interests colored the reactions of both nations' leaders after the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista, Farber argues that the structure of Cuba's economy and politics in the first half of the twentieth century made the island ripe for radical social and economic change, and the ascendant Soviet Union was on hand to provide early assistance. Taking advantage of recently declassified U.S. and Soviet documents as well as biographical and narrative literature from Cuba, Farber focuses on three key years to explain how the Cuban rebellion rapidly evolved from a multiclass, antidictatorial movement into a full-fledged social revolution.

Alfred J. López, José Martí and the Future of Cuban Nationalism.  Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 2006.  ISBN: 0813029996.  List Price: $59.95 (Cloth)

Lopez examines the role of Jose Marti’s writing on concepts of Cuban nationalism that fueled the 1895 colonial revolution against Spain and have since continued to inform conflicting and violently opposed visions of the Cuban nation. He examines how the same body of work has come to be equally championed by opposing sides in the ongoing battle between the Cuban nation-state, which under Castro has consistently claimed Marti as a crucial inspiration for its Marxist revolutionary government, and the diasporic communities in Miami and elsewhere who still honor Marti as a figure of hope for the Cuban nation in exile. He also shows how, more recently, Marti has become an international as well as national icon, as postcolonial and New Americanist scholars have appropriated parts of his writings and message for use in their own self-described "hemispheric" and even "planetary" critiques of Western imperialist projects in Latin America and beyond.

As the first study to examine the impact of Marti's writings on both Cubans and Cuban Americans and to consider the ongoing polemic over Marti as part of the larger postcolonial problem of nation building, Lopez's study also considers the more general issue of literature within nationalist projects. He illuminates the common concepts and ideas that underlie the ongoing ideological chasm between the Cuban nation-state and the Cuban nation in exile and offers the possibility of a new way of reading and understanding notions of national identity that have historically both enabled and delimited the ways in which Latin Americans and U.S. Hispanics have understood and defined themselves.

Harvey R. Neptune, Caliban and the Yankees: Trinidad and the United States Occupation.  Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007.  ISBN: 9780807830802.  List Price: $59.95 (Cloth).  ISBN: 9780807857885.  List Price: $21.95

In a compelling story of the installation and operation of U.S. bases in the Caribbean colony of Trinidad during World War II, Harvey Neptune examines how the people of this British island contended with the colossal force of American empire-building at a critical time in the island's history.

The U.S. military occupation between 1941 and 1947 came at the same time that Trinidadian nationalist politics sought to project an image of a distinct, independent, and particularly un-British cultural landscape.

The American intervention, Neptune shows, contributed to a tempestuous scene as Trinidadians deliberately engaged Yankee personnel, paychecks, and practices flooding the island. He explores the military-based economy, relationships between U.S. servicemen and Trinidadian women, and the influence of American culture on local music (especially calypso), fashion, labor practices, and everyday racial politics.

Tracing the debates about change among ordinary and privileged Trinidadians, he argues that it was the poor, the women, and the youth who found the most utility in and moved most avidly to make something new out of the American presence.

Neptune also places this history of Trinidad's modern times into a wider Caribbean and Latin American perspective, highlighting how Caribbean peoples sometimes wield "America" and "American ways" as part of their localized struggles.

Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw, Heroes and Hero Cults in Latin America.  Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.  ISBN: 9780292714373. List Price: $55.00 (Hardcover).  ISBN: 9780292714816.  List Price: $22.95 (Paper)

Latin American history traditionally has been defined by larger-than-life heroes such as Símon Bolívar, Emiliano Zapata, and Evita Perón. Recent scholarship, however, tends to emphasize social and cultural factors rather than great leaders. In this new collection, Samuel Brunk and Ben Fallaw bring heroes back to the center of the debate, arguing that heroes not only shape history, they also "tell us a great deal about the places from which they come."

The original essays in this collection examine ten modern Latin American heroes whose charisma derived from the quality of their relationships with admirers, rather than their innate personal qualities. The rise of mass media, for instance, helped pave the way for populists such as radio actress-turned-hero Evita Perón. On the other hand, heroes who become president often watch their images crumble, as policies replace personality in the eyes of citizens. In the end, the editors argue, there is no formula for Latin American heroes, who both forge, and are forged by, unique national events. The conclusion points toward Mexico, where the peasant revolutions that elevated Miguel Hidalgo and, later, Emiliano Zapata are so revered that today's would-be heroes, such as the EZLN's Subcomandante Marcos, must link themselves to peasant mythology even when their personal roots are far from native ground. The enduring (or, in some cases, fading) influence of those discussed in this volume validates the central placement of heroes in Latin American history.

Mary Kay Vaughan and Stephen E. Lewis, eds., The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920-1940.  Durham: Duke University Press, 2006.  ISBN: 082233657X.  List Price: $84.95 (Cloth).  ISBN: 0822336685. List Price: $23.95 (Paper)

When the fighting of the Mexican Revolution died down in 1920, the national government faced the daunting task of building a cohesive nation. It had to establish control over a disparate and needy population and prepare the country for global economic competition. As part of this effort, the government enlisted the energy of artists and intellectuals in cultivating a distinctly Mexican identity. It devised a project for the incorporation of indigenous peoples and oversaw a vast, innovative program in the arts. The Eagle and the Virgin examines the massive nation-building project Mexico undertook between 1920 and 1940.



Contributors explore the nation-building efforts of the government, artists, entrepreneurs, and social movements; their contradictory, often conflicting intersection; and their inevitably transnational nature. Scholars of political and social history, communications, and art history describe the creation of national symbols, myths, histories, and heroes to inspire patriotism and transform workers and peasants into efficient, productive, gendered subjects. They analyze the aesthetics of nation building made visible in murals, music, and architecture; investigate state projects to promote health, anticlericalism, and education; and consider the role of mass communications, such as cinema and radio, and the impact of road building. They discuss how national identity was forged among social groups, specifically political Catholics, industrial workers, middle-class women, and indigenous communities. Most important, the volume weighs in on debates about the tension between the eagle (the modernizing secular state) and the Virgin of Guadalupe (the Catholic defense of faith and morality). It argues that despite bitter, violent conflict, the symbolic repertoire created to promote national identity and memory making eventually proved capacious enough to allow the eagle and the virgin to coexist peacefully.

Sergio de la Mora, Cinemachismo: Masculinities and Sexuality in Mexican Film.  Austin: University of Texas Press, 2006.  ISBN: 9780292712966.  List Price: $55.00 (Hardcover).  ISBN: 9780292712973.  List Price: $21.95 (Paper)

After the modern Mexican state came into being following the Revolution of 1910, hyper-masculine machismo came to be a defining characteristic of "mexicanidad," or Mexican national identity. Virile men (pelados and charros), virtuous prostitutes as mother figures, and minstrel-like gay men were held out as desired and/or abject models not only in governmental rhetoric and propaganda, but also in literature and popular culture, particularly in the cinema. Indeed, cinema provided an especially effective staging ground for the construction of a gendered and sexualized national identity.

In this book, Sergio de la Mora offers the first extended analysis of how Mexican cinema has represented masculinities and sexualities and their relationship to national identity from 1950 to 2004. He focuses on three traditional genres (the revolutionary melodrama, the cabaretera [dancehall] prostitution melodrama, and the musical comedy "buddy movie") and one subgenre (the fichera brothel-cabaret comedy) of classic and contemporary cinema. By concentrating on the changing conventions of these genres, de la Mora reveals how Mexican films have both supported and subverted traditional heterosexual norms of Mexican national identity. In particular, his analyses of Mexican cinematic icons Pedro Infante and Gael García Bernal and of Arturo Ripstein's cult film El lugar sin límites illuminate cinema's role in fostering distinct figurations of masculinity, queer spectatorship, and gay male representations. De la Mora completes this exciting interdisciplinary study with an in-depth look at how the Mexican state brought about structural changes in the film industry between 1989 and 1994 through the work of the Mexican Film Institute (IMCINE), paving the way for a renaissance in the national cinema.

Francisco José Moreno, Before Fidel: The Cuba I Remember.  Austin: University of Texas Press, 2007.  ISBN: 9780292714243.  List Price: $45.00 (Hardcover).  ISBN: 9780292714762.  List Price: $19.95 (Paper)

Before Fidel Castro seized power, Cuba was an ebullient and chaotic society in a permanent state of turmoil, combining a raucous tropical nature with the evils of arbitrary and corrupt government. Yet this fascinating period in Cuban history has been largely forgotten or misrepresented, even though it set the stage for Castro's dramatic takeover in 1959. To reclaim the Cuba that he knew—and add color and detail to the historical record—distinguished political scientist Francisco José Moreno here offers his recollections of the Cuba in which he came of age personally and politically.

Moreno takes us into the little-known world of privileged, upper-middle-class, white Cubans of the 1930s through the 1950s. His vivid depictions of life in the family and on the streets capture the distinctive rhythms of Cuban society and the dynamics between parents and children, men and women, and people of different races and classes. The heart of the book describes Moreno's political awakening, which culminated during his student years at the University of Havana. Moreno gives a detailed, insider's account of the anti-Batista movement, including the Ortodoxos and the Triple A. He recaptures the idealism and naiveté of the movement, as well as its ultimate ineffectiveness as it fell before the juggernaut of the Castro Revolution. His own disillusionment and wrenching decision to leave Cuba rather than accept a commission in Castro's army poignantly closes the book.

Jordana Dym, From Sovereign Villages to National States: City, State, and Federation in Central America, 1759-1839.  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.  ISBN: 9780826339096.  List Price: $45.00 (Hardcover)

Dym argues that in Central America, an important aspect of the nineteenth-century political revolution was a shift from European political ideology based on municipal sovereignty (that of the pueblos) to a politics of national sovereignty (that of the pueblo). The tensions in the move from municipal to national sovereignty, she finds, contributed to multiple civil wars and to the difficulty of bringing breakaway regions to respect colonial districts and capitals. This book challenges the received wisdom that states emerged, already formed, from the process of independence.

Based on extensive research in national and local archives in Central America, the United States, and Europe, this political history examines a complex process that takes into account cooperation as well as conflict between elites and popular groups. It holds that the contradictory, multifaceted republican processes of independence and subsequent efforts at state formation owed much to and must be analyzed within the context of the specific types of political change introduced in the late colonial period, a question of interest to scholars and students of Central America, Mexico, and South America.

Baron L. Pineda, Shipwrecked Identities: Navigating Race on Nicaragua's Mosquito Coast.  New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2006.  ISBN: 0813538130,  List Price: $68.00 (Cloth).  ISBN: 0813558149.  List Price: $23.95 (Paper)

Global identity politics rest heavily on notions of ethnicity and authenticity, especially in contexts where indigenous identity becomes a basis for claims of social and economic justice. In contemporary Latin America there is a resurgence of indigenous claims for cultural and political autonomy and for the benefits of economic development. Yet these identities have often been taken for granted.

In this historical ethnography, Baron Pineda traces the history of the port town of Bilwi, now known officially as Puerto Cabezas, on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua to explore the development, transformation, and function of racial categories in this region over time. From the English colonial period, through the Sandanista conflict of the 1980s, to the aftermath of the Contra War, Pineda shows how powerful outside actors, as well as Nicaraguans, have made efforts to influence notions about African and Black identity among the Miskito Indians, Afro-Nicaraguan Creole, and Mestizos in the region. In the process, he provides insight into the causes and meaning of social movements and political turmoil. Shipwrecked Identities also includes important critical analysis of the role of anthropologists and other North American scholars in the Contra-Sandinista conflict, as well as the ways these scholars have defined ethnic identities in Latin America.

As the indigenous people of the Mosquito Coast continue to negotiate the effects of a long history of contested ethnic and racial identity, this book takes an important step in questioning the origins, legitimacy, and consequences of such claims.

Jonathan Eastwood, The Rise of Nationalism in Venezuela.  Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 2006.  ISBN: 0813030110.  List Price: $59.95

Eastwood offers a novel account of the rise of nationalism in Venezuela and the broader Hispanic world. Beginning with analysis of the origins of Spanish nationalism in the eighteenth century, he examines the character of social life in Venezuela during the colonial period, showing there was no national consciousness there for the bulk of this period and sketching those characteristics of colonial Caracas that made its elite so receptive to nationalism by 1810. He analyzes the process by which this elite turned to nationalism, considers the various competing nationalisms of the early nineteenth century, and argues that, among other things, the nationalism that emerged in this region was notable for its civic and collectivistic character--qualities, he contends, that contributed to strains of authoritarian politics in later Venezuelan political life.

Drawing on political and social theory--notably Weberian historical sociology--and historical scholarship, Eastwood tracks the intellectual shifts and changes pertaining to ideas of nationhood that were the precondition for a specific Venezuelan version of nationalism. His study reveals much about Venezuelan national history, the nature of nationalism, and the roots of authoritarian and democratic government in contemporary Venezuela.

Carmen Nava and Ludwig Lauerhass, Jr., eds., Brazil in the Making: Facets of National Identity.  Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006.  ISBN: 9780742537569. List Price: $72.00.  ISBN: 9780742537576.  List Price: $24.95 (Paper)

This innovative volume traces Brazil's singular character, exploring both the remarkable richness and cohesion of the national culture and the contradictions and tensions that have developed over time. What shared experiences give its citizens their sense of being Brazilian? What memories bind them together? What metaphors and stereotypes of identity have emerged? Which groups are privileged over others in idealized representations of the nation? 

The contributors-a multidisciplinary group of U.S. and Brazilian scholars-offer a fresh look at questions that have been asked since the early nineteenth century and that continue to drive nationalist discourse today. Their chapters explore Brazilian identity through an innovative framework that brings in seldom-considered aspects of art, music, and visual images, offering a compelling analysis of how nationalism functions as a social, political, and cultural construction in Latin America.