This essay reviews the following works:

Women and the Cuban Insurrection: How Gender Shaped Castro’s Victory. By Lorraine Bayard de Volo. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Pp. xi + 304. $25.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781316630846.

Buenas al pleito: Mujeres en la rebelión de Sandino. By Alejandro Bendaña. Managua: Anamá Ediciones, 2019. Pp. 302. $25.00 paperback. ISBN: 9789992475652.

Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America. By Tanya Harmer. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. x + 384. $34.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781469654294.

Laboring for the State: Women, Family, and Work in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959–1971. By Rachel Hynson. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xvii + 332. $34.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107188679.

Students of Revolution: Youth, Protest, and Coalition Building in Somoza-Era Nicaragua. By Claudia Rueda. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2019. Pp. xii + 304. $45.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781477319307.

Sandinistas: A Moral History. By Robert J. Sierakowski. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2019. Pp. 356. $35.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780268106898.

Celia Sánchez Manduley: The Life and Legacy of a Cuban Revolutionary. By Tiffany A. Sippial. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2020. Pp. xxi + 288. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781469654607.

Revolution and Reaction: The Diffusion of Authoritarianism in Latin America. By Kurt Weyland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 310. $34.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781108728836.

En este trabajo analizo la novela Boarding Home (1987) del escritor cubano Guillermo Rosales a partir de su inscripción dentro de las coordenadas que signaron el éxodo cubano por el Mariel en 1980. Exploro cómo Mariel se vuelve un espacio simbólico de significación desde donde se ofrece una mirada mucho más compleja al evento estigmatizado tanto por la revolución, como por los medios de prensa y la comunidad norteamericanos. La operación de “basurización del otro”, de la “escoria” que lleva a cabo el gobierno cubano (Castillo Durante) tiene como consecuencia inevitable a la abyección (Kristeva), y ambos fenómenos se hacen visibles, materiales, en la espacialización del margen, del exilio en la vida del protagonista como se comprueba con su vida en un home de Miami, y tras sus recorridos por la ciudad. Tanto el home como La Pequeña Habana son lugares heterotópicos (Foucault) en donde opera una distorsión de las dos utopías (o distopías) que entrañan la revolución y el exilio. Concluyo que Rosales apela a la literatura como acto de resistencia ante la invisibilidad y el estigma del éxodo.

En 1835, el esclavo cubano Juan Francisco Manzano escribió su autobiografía, cumpliendo con el encargo del abolicionista Domingo del Monte. El manuscrito original muestra un narrador psicológicamente escindido que lucha consigo mismo y proyecta una tonalidad terrorífica que produce una gran empatía a sus lectores. En oposición al horror, la modalidad terrorífica se define por su tendencia a la ocultación, al tiempo que crea incertidumbre e intriga. Esto es visible en los múltiples episodios de tortura en el texto, en el cual el narrador se centra en los momentos previos al suceso, evitando descripciones gráficas. A través del análisis de la transcripción del manuscrito de William Luis, arguyo que esta tonalidad logra expresar la experiencia de la esclavitud, una condición desconocida para la gran mayoría de los lectores. Gracias a un proceso imaginativo, los lectores pueden tener acceso a la experiencia y sentir empatía por el esclavo en el umbral del horror.

This essay reviews the following works:

Between the Middle East and the Americas: The Cultural Politics of Diaspora. Edited by Evelyn Alsultany and Ella Shohat. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 334. $41.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780472069446.

Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in Colonial Spanish America. By Karoline P. Cook. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. Pp. 261. $45.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780812248241.

More Argentine Than You: Arabic-Speaking Immigrants in Argentina. By Steven Hyland Jr. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 304. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780826358776.

Islam and the Americas. Edited by Aisha Khan. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2015. Pp. vii + 331. $32.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780813060132.

Crescent over Another Horizon: Islam in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Latino USA. Edited by María del Mar Logroño Narbona, Paulo G. Pinto, and John Tofik Karam. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Pp. ix + 344. $60.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781477302293.

The Mexican Mahjar: Transnational Maronites, Jews, and Arabs under the French Mandate. By Camila Pastor. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 352. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477314623.

Syrian and Lebanese Patrícios in São Paulo: From the Levant to Brazil. By Oswaldo Truzzi. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2018. Pp. ix + 173. $30.00 paperback. ISBN: 9780252083631.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Fates of Political Parties: Institutional Crisis, Continuity, and Change in Latin America. By Jennifer Cyr. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. v + 269. $99.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107189799.

Los sistemas de partidos en América Latina, 1978–2015. Tomo 1: México, América Central, y República Dominicana; Tomo 2: Cono Sur y países andinos. Edited by Flavia Freidenberg. Mexico City: Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Instituto Nacional Electoral, 2016. Pp. vii + 465 and vii + 543. Collection ISBN: 9786078510078.

Party Brands in Crisis: Partisanship, Brand Dilution, and the Breakdown of Political Parties in Latin America. By Noam Lupu. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016. Pp. xii + 247. $32.99 paperback. ISBN: 9781107423206.

Changing Course in Latin America: Party Systems in the Neoliberal Era. By Kenneth M. Roberts. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 330. $35.99 paper. ISBN: 9780521673266.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Lords of Tetzcoco: The Transformation of Indigenous Rule in Postconquest Central Mexico. By Bradley Benton. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. viii +195. $99.99 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107190580.

Polygamy and the Rise and Demise of the Aztec Empire. By Ross Hassig. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 186. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780826357120.

Pueblos within Pueblos: Tlaxilacalli Communities in Acolhuacan, Mexico, ca. 1272–1692. By Benjamin D. Johnson Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 252. $31.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781646420148.

The Aztecs at Independence: Nahua Culture Makers in Central Mexico, 1799–1832. By Miriam Melton-Villanueva. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. Pp. ix + 249. $55.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780816533534.

Portraying the Aztec Past: The Codices Boturini, Azcatitlan, and Aubin. By Angela Herren Rajagopalan. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2018. Pp. 212. $29.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781477316078.

When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History. By Matthew Restall. New York: Ecco Press, 2018. Pp. 526. ISBN: 9780062427267.

Dressing the Part: Power, Dress, Gender, and Representation in the Pre-Columbian Americas. Edited by Sarahh E. M. Scher and Billie J. A. Follensbee Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2018. Pp. vii + 497. $125.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780813062211.

The Woman Who Turned into a Jaguar: And Other Narratives of Native Women in Archives of Colonial Mexico. By Lisa Sousa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2017. Pp. ix + 404. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780804756402.

The Fifth Sun: A New History of the Aztecs. By Camilla Townsend. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019. Pp. xiii + 336. $29.95 hardcover. ISBN: 9780190673062.

“If you gotta ask, man, you ain't never gonna know,” satchmo Armstrong once said when someone asked him, “What is jazz?” Such an answer might also fit the question, “What is the state of our knowledge of what to do about illiteracy and ignorance in Latin America.” But the question has been asked in serious company accustomed to thoughtful answers—answers that guide and energize. So we will try to examine what is speculated, what is known, what is being investigated, and what we need to know most in order to establish contact with that vast terra incognita in Latin America comprising the illiterate and the unlearned.

This essay reviews the following works:

Limits to Decolonization: Indigeneity, Territory, and Hydrocarbon Politics in the Bolivian Chaco. By Penelope Anthias. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2018. Pp. 312. $27.95 paperback. ISBN: 9781501714368.

The Extractive Zone: Social Ecologies and Decolonial Perspectives. By Macarena Gómez-Barris. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 208. $24.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780822368977.

Oil, Revolution, and Indigenous Citizenship in Ecuadorian Amazonia. By Flora Lu, Gabriela Valdivia, and Néstor L. Silva. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. 313. $119.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781137564627.

Undoing Multiculturalism: Resource Extraction and Indigenous Rights in Ecuador. By Carmen Martínez Novo. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2021. Pp. 280. $50.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780822946632.

Landscapes of Inequity: Environmental Justice in the Andes-Amazon Region. Edited by Nicholas A. Robins and Barbara J. Fraser. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2020. Pp. xxxiv + 347. $65.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781496208026.

La lucha por los comunes y las alternativas al desarrollo frente al extractivismo. Compiled by Denisse Roca-Servat and Jenni Perdomo-Sánchez. Buenos Aires: CLACSO, 2020. Pp. 430. E-book. ISBN: 9789877228137.

Shifting Livelihoods: Gold Mining and Subsistence in the Chocó, Colombia. By Daniel Tubb. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2020. Pp. xxviii + 217. $95.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780295747521.

Activities commemorating (positively or negatively) the Columbian quincentenary have moved the story of this encounter out of the libraries, off the dusty shelves of nineteenth-century museums, and back into the political arena where it began. In the United States and Canada, as in Latin America, the search for a usable history that would include Native Americans has prompted reassessment and revision of the historiography of Indian-white relations. This research note will review some of the more important ethnohistorical issues raised in North America and comment on possible comparative studies for the Southern Cone.

It has often been observed that “Where power is, women are not.” Noting women's virtual absence from the realm of conventional politics, Jane Jaquette urged scholars in 1980 to look beyond elections in studying female political participation in Latin America. Arguing for an “expanded notion of the political,” she called for research on female participation within different social classes, especially their role in “informal networks, … clientele linkages, … strike activities, urban land seizures and barrio politics”. This article employs a community study method to investigate women's grass-roots participation in politics and labor mobilization following World War II in the region of greater São Paulo known as ABC (named after the municipios of Santo André, São Bernardo do Campo, and São Caetano).

It has been traditional to treat the life and art of Julián del Casal and José Martí as antithetical statements.

This study addresses the provincial origins and role of the reactionary party that legislated the reconstruction of the Brazilian monarchy, perhaps Latin America's most stable nineteenth-century political regime. The study locates the party in terms of regional power, taking into account social, economic, and political factors. It analyzes the party's ideology in the historical context of the Regency (1831–1840) and its immediate aftermath, an era of destabilization, social war, and secessionism. The study also demonstrates how the party mobilized partisan support nationally to consolidate party and state power, the unexpected impact of patronage, and the increasingly autonomous quality of state power over time.