Although it is widely acknowledged that Althusser's writings had a lasting impact in Latin America, the French philosopher's reception in the region has been underresearched. The present article investigates the impact of Althusserianism on the cultural politics of the Argentine New Left during the late 1960s and early 1970s. First, I survey the intellectual trajectory of Juan Carlos Portantiero, a New Left intellectual, scholar, and political activist whose writings left a mark on the Argentine historiography of Peronism. Second, I turn to Los Libros (1969–1976), a journal of cultural criticism run by a 1960 cohort of internationally renowned Argentine intellectuals. I analyze the group's Althusser-inspired intervention into contemporaneous debates on the meaning of Peronism and the link between aesthetics and politics. I close by registering the productive influence of Althusserianism on Argentine intellectual production after the country's transition to democracy in 1983.

This essay reviews the following works:

Faith and Joy: Memoirs of a Revolutionary Priest. By Fernando Cardenal, S. J. Translated and edited by Kathy McBride and Mark Lester. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2015. Pp. xxvi + 288. $28.00 paper. ISBN: 9781626981423.

Nicaragua and the Politics of Utopia: Development and Culture in the Modern State. By Daniel Chávez. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 376. $65.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780826520470.

Sandino’s Nation: Ernesto Cardenal and Sergio Ramírez Writing Nicaragua, 1940–2012. By Stephen Henighan. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2014. Pp. v + 776. $33.00 paper. ISBN: 9780773543157.

The Awakening Coast: An Anthology of Moravian Writing from Mosquitia and Eastern Nicaragua, 1849–1899. Edited, translated, and annotated by Karl Offen and Terry Rugeley. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2014. Pp. viii + 448. $75.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780803248960.

The concept of dependency, Platt asserts, is “scarcely sustainable” because its historical foundation is unconvincing. “Students of chrono-politics (history),” he implies, find unacceptable the notion that “development and expansion” of Western Europe's economy dominated and conditioned that of Latin America since the conquest. The fact that Dos Santos' definition of dependency denies the presence of autonomous development in Latin America is “critical.” Economic autonomy, according to Platt, is the leitmotif of Latin America's evolution, certainly to the close of the nineteenth century, when there “finally awoke metropolitan interest in the neglected periphery.”

Like many Guatemalan documents referred to by scholars in the past, the Libros Segundo y Tercero del Cabildo de Guatemala (Books Two and Three of the City Council of Santiago de Guatemala) have long been thought to be missing, thereby removing from consultation key sources concerning the events and circumstances of the early colonial period. It turns out that these two tomes, which span the years between 1530 and 1553, are not missing and have been part of the holdings of the Hispanic Society of America for the past century. We discuss how other documentary treasures were taken from Guatemala or disappeared from circulation altogether, identifying the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the period during which national patrimony was most under threat from both internal and external forces.

United States studies in Latin American history, since their emergence as a distinct body of literature in the early years of the twentieth century, have been much more tradition-bound than their counterparts in United States and European history. More descriptive than analytical, they concentrated on diplomatic, military, political, and institutional history. They were legalistic and elitist in their approach, a reflection in part of their subject matter. But many other factors accounted for their traditionalism. Narration and description seemed justifiable first steps in a field practically devoid of serious scholarly attention. The dearth of research aids and the accessibility of certain types of source materials influenced the nature of the work undertaken. Less tangible factors were also present. It was easy to justify studies about former Spanish territories later incorporated into the United States since, after all, such studies were really a part of “American” history, and a “romantic” part at that. A case could also be made for the study of Spain and her empire in the new world. Once Europe's greatest military power and master of a world-wide empire, Catholic, aristocratic Spain subsequently became the rival of England, source of the dominant liberal, protestant culture of the United States. Moreover, as the United States itself began to acquire overseas colonies, was it not important to assess more objectively the Spanish experience with empire? But what was the importance of studying the dismal and chaotic post-independence history of Spain's former colonies in America? Perhaps concerned about the reception of their work in an area many people considered marginal, United States historians of Latin America produced impeccable scholarship on themes of proven acceptability. Working largely in isolation from United States social scientists, unlike their colleagues in United States history, they remained remote from the fascinating tools and concepts being developed in other disciplines. Moreover, although many first-rate scholars contributed works of solid worth and enduring value, the field as a whole seems to have failed to attract the most imaginative and original minds.

This research note provides historical context for the creation of Brazil's labor judiciary and tells the story of an innovative partnership forged between the archive of Pernambuco's regional labor tribunal and the Federal University of Pernambuco. It also engages methodological questions about the use of these labor court cases, reviewing some of the scholarly literature based on these sources and describing some research projects under way. Pernambuco has powerful historical links to the sugarcane industry, and because the history of labor in this industry is the terrain of our work, this note pays particular attention to the relevance of labor court cases for studying Pernambuco's sugarcane region.

In rediscovering the interpenetration of popular culture and politics in Latin America, and thus the ways these realms mutually constitute one another, scholars have also witnessed the analytic irruption of one particular cultural field: religion. Close attention to grassroots political culture allows us to probe how people's spiritual subjectivity and political subjectivity overlap and cross-fertilize one another. In the process, religion shapes political outcomes in ways often unintended. Two further analytic insights are discussed: First, analysis of lived religion must partially decenter religious institutions from the focus of analysis but also pay attention to how institutions shape spiritual and political subjectivities. Second, our theoretical frameworks—while rightly rejecting dominant Western forms of anti-body dualism—must preserve analytic place for a realm of human experience termed here “embodied dualism” or “experiential dualism.”

The political expression of the Argentine working class has been a subject of concern to social scientists and other interested observers for some time. The country was one of the first in Latin America to have autonomous trade unions and political parties or ideological groups dedicated to the defense of labor interests. During the 1940s a major reorientation took place associated with the advent of Peronism. How did this change come about? Was it a totally new departure, or was it rather an adjustment of tactics on the part of the existing structures? How different is the Argentine labor movement—both in its trade unions and its political expressions—from others in comparable countries? This article seeks to explore this problem, based on a theoretical reassessment of the issues involved in working-class organizations as they emerged in the Argentine historical experience.

The history of the Argentine interior during the nineteenth century has often escaped the attention of researchers attracted to the dramatic economic and political growth of the eastern riverine provinces. Included in this oversight has been the plight of the rural laboring classes, unless associated with studies of immigrants. It has been easier to trace the impact and lifestyles of coastal elites—the estanciero, the merchant, the caudillo, and the politician—and the urban working class, than to reconstruct the life of the provincial peon. The study of the lower classes in general has been further impeded by the dramatic but stereotyped visions of the gaucho and other rural characters immortalized by writers such as Sarmiento, Hernández, Güiraldes, and Martínez Estrada. Finally, the illteracy of creole workers has left us with limited personal records of their existence. Yet despite all the inconveniences involved in the study of the rural working class, it is still possible to reconstruct aspects of its social, political, and economic conditions.

Comparative analysis of two Salvadoran towns with similar patterns of international migration but different historical land-tenure patterns reveals the emergence of radically different development strategies. Whereas in one case, mostly landed households with a history of farming commercially have been selling land and abandoning agriculture, in the other case, previously landless households whose members worked as sharecroppers before the onset of migration have been acquiring land and farming as much as possible. The opposite processes at work in these two cases raise important theoretical questions for both migration and development studies. Using ethnographic, census, and historical data, I examine how and why land ownership, under particular historical circumstances, conditions the impact of migration on development.