México se encuentra inmerso en un proceso que se caracteriza por el aumento de la violencia armada. Sin embargo, esta no es la única forma de violencia que se vive en los pueblos. Este artículo analiza el proceso de transformación de la vida cotidiana y las condiciones de vida de los habitantes de Huitzilac, Morelos, México, debidas a la presencia de actividades delictivas como el robo, secuestro y asesinato; la firma de tratados comerciales internacionales que ha provocado la desaparición de la actividad manufacturera; y la inseguridad en la tenencia de la tierra como parte de un proceso de manipulación de la legislación agraria.

In 1949 the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress published A Guide to the Art of Latin America (gala), an annotated bibliography of the literature on Latin America since the Conquest; it covered the years up to 1942, when the Handbook of Latin American Studies (hlas) had begun its annual bibliographies. “It is a startling fact” the Introduction begins, “that no single work deals comprehensively with the history of art in the Latin American countries.”

Scholars generally agree that after 1810 the Mexican economy, shattered by destruction of property and flight of population and capital during the long wars for independence, entered a severe depression. It has usually been assumed that this depression persisted well beyond mid-century, exacerbated by political instability, banditry, and intermittent civil warfare. This assumption was given shape and substance by John Coatsworth's influential 1978 article, which presented a picture of not merely miserable but deteriorating economic conditions for at least a half-century after 1810. Coatsworth calculated that per capita and total income fell until “sometime after 1860” and that a solid recovery was delayed until after 1880.

Cada escritor se maneja dentro de peculiares ciclos productivos, cuyo ritmo, duración, intensidad, época de la vida, propician valederas leeciones sobre su intima problematica, tanto personal como social, tanto histórica como estética, tanto ideológica como artistica, por cuanto no responden meramente a su voluntad productiva sino que surgen en la confluencia de sus interiores procesos psiquicos con las situaciones históricas de la cultura en que viven. Por eso nos hablan del tiempo del escritor y del tiempo de la sociedad y solo podemos alcanzar su comprensión si abrazamos conjuntamente a los dos a través de la fusión ideológica que nos entregan los textos.

Generally speaking, all nations have stereotyped images of other nations. These are frequently inaccurate, yet they form the basis upon which people “feel for or against other nations, interpret their behavior as villainous or good, judge their actions, and judge what they themselves as a nation should do in relation to the others. It follows, of course, that if the images are false, the resulting course of action can hardly ever be adequate.” As noted in an image study by UNESCO: “If the peoples of the world are to learn to live together in peace they need to know one another better. As matters stand, each of us has oversimplified, stereotyped concepts of other peoples. These concepts are usually erroneous, out of date and, all too frequently, negative in character. Clearly this is not material with which to build mutual understanding and tolerance.”

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

From 1908 until 1973, unknown to most of his countrymen and to Latin Americanists, a Peruvian photographer with an artist's eye compiled a remarkable visual and artistic record of the Peruvian highlands, a record that is just being brought to light. During these years, Martin Chambi, a professional, creative photographer, took more than sixteen thousand photographs, all of which have been retained by his family. Through the efforts of Edward Ranney and the photographer's oldest son, Victor Chambi, this invaluable resource will soon become available for use by authors, artists, and scholars of Latin America. Ranney, a free-lance photographer and a student of archeology, first became aware of Chambi's work during his field trips to Cuzco, Peru, where he spent many months producing his own work, including a forthcoming photographic document on Inca architecture. As he became more familiar with the elder Chambi's work, Ranney soon realized the early artistic eye of this photographer and the superb documentary record he left behind of people, places, and historical events in Cuzco and its surrounding archeological sites and indigenous cultures.

Few studies have focused on the subject of literacy among Mexican Americans in the nineteenth century. Richard Griswold del Castillo's “Literacy in San Antonio, 1850-1860,” stands out as one of the few studies of Mexican American reading and writing skills in nineteenth-century Texas. Its limitations are obvious, however. As a research note, it made no pretense at comprehensiveness. It focused on only one town, and the ten-year span it covered is rather narrow. Griswold del Castillo nevertheless touched upon an often neglected aspect of Tejano history—the immigrant dimension of the Chicano experience.

This study identifies evidence of the influence of diversification and leverage on the financial performance of Brazilian and Mexican family businesses. It analyzes 102 Brazilian and 71 Mexican publicly traded family companies. Data analysis uses ordinary least squares regression in Stata. The results indicate that Brazilian family businesses have a higher return on assets when diversifying their products or services. When diversifying international markets, Brazilian companies present a lower return on assets and return on equity. For Mexican companies, international diversification derives a higher return on assets and return on equity. In addition, results show that leverage moderates the relationship between diversification and performance both for Brazilian and Mexican family businesses. The study contributes to the current literature by investigating that diversification improves business performance and that leverage is a significant element in intensifying the benefits of this strategy in the performance of family businesses. The study also emphasizes that diversification can be useful to address market difficulties and imperfections in unstable scenarios, such as when it is targeted to planned performance and considers financial conservatism in family companies.

Util y amena ha sido la lectura del trabajo de Jorge E. Hardoy y Carmen Aranovich, “Escalas y funciones urbanas de América Hispánica hacia 1600, Un ensayo metodológico.” Un valioso y sugestivo intento de mensurar el origen de la historia urbana del continente, por lo menos en cuanto a una caracterización de magnitudes y un delineamiento de las más importantes funciones del fenómeno urbano en América.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Admirable Adventures and Strange Fortunes of Master Anthony Knivet: An English Pirate in Sixteenth-Century Brazil. Edited by Vivien Kogut Lessa de Sá. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015. Pp. x + 230. $25.19 paper. ISBN: 9781107463004.

Privateering, Piracy, and British Policy in Spanish America, 1810–1830. By Matthew McCarthy. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Boydell Press, 2013. Pp. vi + 184. $115.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781843838616.

Monsters by Trade: Slave Traffickers in Modern Spanish Literature and Culture. By Lisa Surwillo. Stanford, CA: Sanford University Press, 2014. Pp. vii + 251. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780804788793.

Amistad: A Hidden Network of Slavers and Merchants. By Michael Zeuske. Translated from the German by Steven Rendall. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2015. Pp. vii + 267. $24.10 paper. ISBN: 9781558765931.

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.

This essay reviews the following works:

Earth Politics: Religion, Decolonization, and Bolivia’s Indigenous Intellectuals. By Waskar Ari. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2014. Pp. ix + 262. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822356172.

Earth Beings: Ecologies of Practice across Andean Worlds. By Marisol de la Cadena. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2015. Pp. xxvii + 349. $26.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822359630.

Governing Indigenous Territories: Enacting Sovereignty in the Ecuadorian Amazon. By Juliet S. Erazo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. ix + 237. $23.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822354543.

Singing for the Dead: The Politics of Indigenous Revival in Mexico. By Paja Faudree. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. xiii + 315. $24.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822354314.

Multiple Injustices: Indigenous Women, Law, and Political Struggle in Latin America. By R. Aída Hernández Castillo. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2016. Pp. vii + 330. $55.00 cloth. ISBN: 9780816532490.

We Are the Face of OAXACA: Testimony and Social Movements. By Lynn Stephen. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2013. Pp. vii + 344. $25.95 paper. ISBN: 9780822355342.

Politicized Ethnicity: A Comparative Perspective. By Anke Weber, Wesley Hiers, and Anaïd Flesken. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016. Pp. ix + 187. $95.00 cloth. ISBN: 9781137359032.