Hayden White suggests in The Content of the Form that historiography depends upon the existence of a social center that allows the historian to locate events in relation to one another and “to charge them with ethical or moral significance” (White 1987, 11). This center makes it possible for the historical narrative—as opposed to the annals and the chronicle—to achieve closure. White specifies, however, that “in order to qualify as historical, an event must be susceptible to at least two narrations of its occurrence” (White 1987, 20). According to this perspective, the historical narrative is informed by the historian's need to assert his or her authority over other competing accounts of the past. In questioning the privileged position traditionally held by historians and suggesting that historians' discourse is only one of many paths leading to a truthful (re)presentation of the past, White's version of historiography holds particular appeal for those of us who, despite having been trained in fields other than history, consider ourselves to be authoritative interpreters of Brazil.

Interest in Research on the History of Ideas in Latin America is Increasing, but the product is spotty and uneven. As might be exepcted, much of the important work has been done by Spanish Americans and Brazilians. In 1950, in his Social Science Trends in Latin America, the author pointed out the interest in intellectual history, especially in Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay, and this interest has increased notably since that time.

O presente artigo tem como objetivo analisar a reação da organização indígena na região do norte do Cauca, na Côlombia, em face do confronto armado em seu território no período 2000–2005, tentando explicar como esta organização consegue realizar um tipo de resistência ativa ao conflito. O estudo é essencialmente do tipo etnográfico e trabalha com uma perspectiva que privilegia o estudo dos elementos culturais e identitários para a compreensão das ações coletivas, aos moldes de Sonia Alvarez, Evelina Dagnino e Arturo Escobar (2001) em seu livro “Política Cultural e Cultura Política nos Movimentos Sociais Latino-Americanos”.

O artigo apresenta as interpretações e definições de conflito armado e paz encontradas nos discursos dos membros do movimento indígena nortecaucano. Argumenta-se que, no caso indígena, a cultura e seu processo identitário no âmbito da organização são fontes importantes de elementos simbólicos que sustentam os processos de resistência e ao mesmo tempo criam um espaço alternativo importante sobre o tema do conflito armado e da paz no país a partir da sociedade civil, em contraponto às visões tanto do Estado quanto dos atores armados e suas propostas sobre este tema.

The Study of Political Leadership is Important for an Understanding of any society. Political leaders participate in, or influence the making of, decisions that allocate resources within and among social units. These acts of choice constitute the major component of the governing process. It seems obvious, then, that an understanding of any social order rests fundamentally on a systematic grasp of the background attributes, careers, value and issue orientations, behaviors and environmental context of political leaders.

This essay reviews the following works:

The Economics of Contemporary Latin America. By Beatriz Armendáriz and Felipe Larraín B. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2017. Pp. xix + 439. $28.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780262533157.

Technology and the Search for Progress in Modern Mexico. By Edward Beatty. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015. Pp. x + 342. $34.95 paperback. ISBN: 9780520284890.

Guano and the Opening of the Pacific World: A Global Ecological History. By Gregory T. Cushman. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Pp. xxii + 393. $84.29 hardcover. ISBN: 9781107004139.

Oil Revolution: Anticolonial Elites, Sovereign Rights, and the Economic Culture of Decolonization. By Cristopher R. W. Dietrich. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017. Pp. xviii + 352. $34.72 paperback. ISBN: 9781316617892.

Historia mínima de la expansión ferroviaria en América Latina. Edited by Sandra Kuntz-Ficker. Mexico City: El Colegio de México, 2015. Pp. 361. ISBN: 9786074628449.

The First Export Era Revisited: Reassessing Its Contribution to Latin American Economies. Edited by Sandra Kuntz-Ficker. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017. Pp. xxii + 348. $109.67 hardcover. ISBN: 9783319623399.

The Global Political Economy of Raúl Prebisch. Edited by Matias E. Margulis. London: Routledge, 2017. Pp. xv + 217. $103.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9781138219779.

The World Economy through the Lens of the United Nations. Edited by José Antonio Ocampo, Anis Chowdhury, and Diana Alarcón. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. xxv + 296. $90.00 hardcover. ISBN: 9780198817345.

Palma Africana. By Michael Taussig. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018. Pp. 258. $25.00. ISBN: 9780226516134.

Un siglo de economía en Bolivia (1900–2015). Tópicos de historia económica (tomo 1) y Working Papers (tomo 2). Edited by Iván Velázquez-Castellanos and Mario Pacheco Torrico. La Paz: Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, 2017. Vol. 1, pp. 643. ISBN: 9789995418526. Vol. 2, pp. 508. ISBN: 9789995418533. (Both volumes are available by download from the Periódico Digital de Investigación sobre Bolivia, https://www.pieb.com.bo/sipieb_nota.php?idn=11054).

Several years ago a single voice, representing the frustration of many of us trying to carry out research on women in Latin America, decried the “lack of core bibliography, methodological apparati, or thematic models” (item 182:125) as major problems besetting the study of women in Latin America. As of 1975, these research hurdles had not been completely overcome, but certainly steps have been and continue to be taken.

An annotated bibliography on women in Spanish America will soon be published and other bibliographic guides of a more limited scope have been or are in the process of being compiled. Both in North America and Latin America, conferences, seminars, and workshops have been held to discuss methodological problems as well as recent research efforts. Associations, committees, coalitions, and centers have organized to promote the cause, lend support, gather and distribute information, and generally represent a growing concern with women's issues.

Twenty-five years ago folklore scholarship in latin america was the result of the efforts of a handful of professionals and the contributions of a body of devoted amateurs, who operated independently and in isolation from one another. Today the changing picture of Latin American folklore research makes a review of the field highly appropriate. Outwardly there has been an increasing frequency and variety of publication, but more significant is a basic concern with a definition of folklore that will satisfy Latin American scholars. Accompanying this concern with a philosophy of folklore scholarship is an increasing emphasis upon methodology and the organization of folklore studies. Financial support for folklore investigation is more likely to be forthcoming now than a generation ago, although unfortunately there are exceptions.

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.

El presente artículo combina la reflexión académica con la propuesta política. Retoma la pregunta sobre la importancia de las políticas culturales e intenta fundamentar una nueva respuesta. Sostiene que las políticas culturales no pueden concentrarse únicamente en la pura organización de eventos. Más allá del fomento a la producción cultural, del establecimiento de mejores mecanismos para su circulación y de dirigirse a públicos diferenciados, el ensayo apuesta por una política cultural que apunte a la deconstrucción de los imaginarios hegemónicos, vale decir, al intento por intervenir en aquellos sentidos comunes que se encuentran hondamente afianzados en los habitus sociales. Si el capitalismo contemporáneo basa buena parte de su poder en la dominación simbólica, este ensayo entiende que los símbolos y la cultura en general son igualmente un lugar de respuesta.

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.

Brazil is among the few countries where income distribution has become fairer in recent decades. Its Gini coefficient fell significantly in the 2000s while the left-wing Workers’ Party government approved key equity-enhancing reforms in Congress. By analyzing hundreds of news pieces, legislative documents, and secondary sources, I show the strategies that incumbents from the left adopted to build and manage cross-party coalitions that allowed structural changes to materialize. This research is the first systematic effort to detail how three consequential redistributive policies in the areas of conditional cash-transfer programs, education, and minimum wages found their way through a fragmented legislature where the chief executive’s party was minoritarian. Findings add nuance to social policymaking and reveal that partisanship-based approaches to how inequality declined in Latin America require deeper complexification. In the Brazilian case, leftist presidents improved redistribution by investing in multiparty cooperative arrangements while ideology got diluted in the process.

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.

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.

For the first time within living memory, the rural Roman Catholic parish of Talavera in the south-central Peruvian Andes features only native clergy. By placing the Talaveran Catholic priests in theological and historical context, this article shows how this current generation of Catholic priests in Talavera must be understood within the context of the post–Vatican II Catholic Church in Latin America, which explicitly encouraged the training of native clergy and recast the relationship between the sacramental and the human as mutually compatible and constitutive. Although such initiatives are generally associated with liberal parishes unlike Talavera, the nouvelle theology that shaped Vatican II nevertheless meant that the dual nature of the Roman Catholic priesthood—as concretely human but also ineffably sacramental—fundamentally shapes the lay relationship with the Catholic priests in Talavera, too. The resulting tension between the priest as a sacramental mediator to the divine and the priest as a human man is continually renegotiated by laity and clergy alike, and is essential to understanding Catholic priests in Latin America and how lay parishioners experience the Catholic priesthood.

The recent literature dealing with Mexico in the nineteenth century is massive. This motivated us to the task of reviewing the material published since the Third Reunion of Mexican and North American Historians at Oaxtapec in 1969. Initially over 450 titles were identified, dealing with all aspects of the period. Our original intention was to review the literature in Spanish, since that material is already becoming difficult to locate, but our attempt to treat material in only one language became unworkable. We also had planned to organize the essay conceptually rather than chronologically, but too many important studies were left out. So we have reluctantly returned to the traditionally accepted periodization of political history: independence, early republic, reform, and the porfiriato. Limitations of space forced the elimination of sections dealing with local, diplomatic, intellectual, and cultural history.