Most objective examination of the 1994 Chiapas peasant revol
353554
The Zapatista revolution has been the subject of many books, articles, and opinions, but this book covers the subject in the most objective and thorough journalistic manner.
3538163
Charles Truxillo's Crusaders in the Far East: The Moro Wars in the Philippines in the Context of the Ibero-Islamic World War (Jain Publishing, 2012) is a schematic history of Spanish reconquista and the parallel Catholic crusading efforts up to the present day. It is a very short read in the Global History framework. It is ambitious and accessible, but doesn't quite seem to live up to its subtitle--a factor which is most likely attributed to the publishing company rather than Dr. Truxillo.

  Scholars of Spanish period Philippine history are probably better served looking elsewhere as the portions of the work dedicated to the Philippines are superficial and virtually nonexistent. The Moro Wars in the southern Philippines appear in the narrative as more of a coda, as Dutch and English power begins to dominate Southeast Asian waterways and commerce. It is because of this that it doesn't appear as if Truxillo's intention was to focus on the Philippines at all. If the subtitle is not given any consideration then the reader gets an overview of the history of the conflict between Iberians and Muslims which concludes in the Philippines rather than a work with emphasis in this area. This is likely his intended purpose, based on his thesis statements in the introduction.

  In addition to this, the work suffers from a few basic problems. First, though he states in the intro that he uses some of the most up-to-date source material for his work, at times he doesn't seem to agree with Jonathan Riley-Smith (one of the foremost experts in the Crusades, author of The Crusades: A History. Yale 1987) or Edgar Wickberg (arguably one of the most studied researchers of the Chinese population in the Philippines, author of The Chinese in Philippine Life. Yale 1965). Wickberg obviously falls beyond his scope, but only a single work of Riley-Smith's was found in the bibliography. Furthermore, for a few of his statements concerning the native Filipino susceptibility to Old-World diseases and Spanish brutality compared to the Native Americans lean on John Leddy Phelan's 1959 work The Hispanization of the Philippines: Spanish Aims and Filipino Responses: 1565-1700 which was disproven by Linda Newson's Conquest and Pestilence in the Early Spanish Philippines. University of Hawaii Press, 2009. These discrepancies highlight the fact that the Philippines wasn't the true focus of this work, but rather the Ibero-Islamic World War as a whole. And there is nothing wrong with that, aside from the subtitle.

  Truxillo's work is a great entry-level portal for someone looking to study the Reconquista/Crusades, Spanish Colonialism, the Colonial Period, or Southeast Asian colonial history. Unfortunately, it seems like all of the strands that he tried to weave together were never fully realized. As a schematic of what he admits is a topic far too broad in scope for any one scholar to master, it is a decent resource, and while the index is lacking, his bibliography is healthy.
4201144
Incredibly touching and personal ethnographic analysis of one of the most destructive internal wars in South American history.  Theidon is a fantastic scholar and anthropologist who translates the experiences of indigenous highland villagers to northern readers.  I've assigned this to undergraduate college students in my intermediate Latin America class along with films on Fujimori and dirty wars in post-dictatorship Latin America, and will use it in classes on introduction to political anthropology, indigenous movements and human rights as well.
933918
If your are an academic or just a socially aware citizen, this book has something for you. Each chapter has a well written synopsis that provides the average reader with all of the information necessary to understand the political and economic conditions as they impacted the poor for specific time periods in American history. The solutions that are implemented and the results are also included, along with edititorials and similar papers from the time period being discussed. The summaries are easy to follow and the background information provides much more insight into areas the reader might wish to delve deeper into. The result is combination book, which should be of interest to the socially conscious and the academic. I definately left with a better understanding of just how complex the issue of poverty is.
1509733
This is an important account of the social conflicts in Colombia during the last 170 years supported by careful

research on such an important topic. It helps to rescue  a historical memory that the dominant narrative in that South American country wants to permanently erase. It emphasizes the democratic and consistent resistance of what Hylton calls "subaltern" groups throughout the republican history of Colombia. Although the voices and struggles of the urban and rural working classes have not been emphasized enough in this book, they occupy a prominent place. These struggles have not produced sensationalist and flashy headlines like those of the armed groups, yet they have consistently and heroically helped to organize un-unionized rural and urban workers. Mr. Hylton has been critical of all the armed actors in this conflict and rightly provides a general context to better understand their actions. While it is true that leftists in Colombia have emphasized, to their own detriment the call to arms, there has also been a Left that has consistently called for the self-organization of the urban and rural working class. Indeed, most of the armed groups have in a sectarian fashion ridiculed the organization of the urban working class. The narrative of violence has been tragically overemphasized by a Left (perhaps because of the feudal nature of the recent past and the weakness of working class traditions in a semi feudal society) that needs to respect all minorities and their democratic traditions as Mr. Hylton very well documents in his book. His narrative gives us an overview and a general context that complements those of anthropologist Taussig and journalist Molano.
2178928
Un libro que hace reflexionar sobre la situacin del mundo y la clases sociales en la Europa antigua. Sobre el destino y la posibilidad de cambiarlos. La situcacin de las mujer y la voluntad colectiva para realizar un projecto Magno.
Muy recomendable
855354
Excelent book about the struggle of the Zapatista Liberation Army. It is also a good analysis on the actual state of capitalism and a look through  the EZLN strategies to fight it.
2014619
Although this text is 10 years old (as of this writing), I chose to use vigil's text for my Intro course (Chican@ Experiences in Contemporary Society) as opposed to the "classic" by Rudy Acuna (Occupied America). I teach in the Pacific Northwest so the classroom dynamics and demographics are much different from the southwest where Acuna's text resonates. I have found that my chican@ students find the 6-Cs model that Vigil presents useful to understanding the process of colonization and its effects. As a sociologist teaching this course, I appreciate that Vigil combines a macrostructural and macrohistorical theoretical framework (his 6-C's framework for Class, Culture, Color, Contact, Conflict, Change) to present the history of the Chican@s in the US. As such, I can still use the model to help them understand contemporary issues in our community. This is the most useful aspect I believe. We can understand how racial stratification occurred and still occurs (especially in our families, work, education) from a historical "point in time" and extrapolate to our current experiences and situations. you will need to supplement with a texts, films, and articles on women but I believe he incorporates women more successfully than Acuna.
1027617
From the title of this book, one might assume that it is about Latin America's obsession with the past and its failure to look to the future, and that is in there. More specifically, the book is about the deficiencies in the educational systems in Latin America and a comparison with those of progressive countries, principally Asian countries, that have evolved or are in the process of evolving from poverty to prosperity while much of Latin America marches in place or even slips backward.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who reads Spanish and is interested in what works and what does not work in education. There are two reasons why I did not give the book five stars.

The first is that Mr. Oppenheimer is very wordy and tends to digress. This may not be an obstacle to someone who is reading the book for pleasure and takes delight in Mr. Oppenheimer's writing style, but it is bound to be frustrating to anyone who is mainly seeking to be informed.

Secondly, as other reviewers have pointed out, there are grammatical and even factual errors in the book. I don't blame Mr. Oppenheimer for these. As a retired author myself, I know that it is impossible to write a long book without committing occasional errors of grammar, orthography, and occasionally even of fact (there are probably some of the first two in this review). It is the job of proofreaders, paid reviewers, and editors to catch those errors and point them out to the author so that they can be corrected. The publisher seems to have skimped on the work that goes into getting any book from manuscript stage to a polished work ready for publication.

Jack Quinn
4676216
This book is a good readable review of Opus Dei.  In a time period when it is hard to find the truth about anything that involves politics or religion this book is a balanced objective analysis of Opus Dei.  I recommend it highly.
3187436
According to Brading, the "purpose of this book is thus to illuminate the sudden efflorescence and the adamantine resilience of the tradition of Our Lady of Guadalupe." (11) The study, however, reads more like and intellectual historiography of Guadalupan ideas and controversies over the past five centuries.
The method of the book is essentially that of an intellectual history.  Social historians will not enjoy this book as much as, say, theologians and those interested in literary critique and historiography.  What makes this historiography interesting is that the author is able to incorporate the historiographical tendencies in the field while simultaneously inserting his own interpretation of the events.  In other words, the theological and historical debates surrounding Guadalupe evolved in accordance with the social and political structures.  In the end, the reader emerges not only with an understanding of the debates but also the author's analysis of the literature and its history.
By far, this is one the most enjoyable books that I have read on Guadalupe.  Brading is fair and discusses the historical literature in context.  Impressive research skills and highly readable!  Highly recommended.
813444
Williams' book deals with the issue of export agriculture in Central America and its repercussions on the economic, ecological, and social well-being of this troubled region. Williams divides the book into three parts, according to the main exports of Latin America. First, Williams deals with cotton's emergence as a cash crop and its positive and negative aspects. Second, Williams deals with cattle and the effects it has had upon the land and the men who till it. This book is interesting in the way it views the cash crops in an economic light and in the ways they affect farmers, large
farmers, and the working class.
 The environment has blessed Central America with some of the best land anywhere on earth. Central America's pacific coastal plain, for example, is ideal for growing cotton. The ecological consequences of growing cotton, however, are quite severe. The stress on the soil is severe, considering this crop is not for subsistence. While the law requires that the land be cleared as to protect the land, it is nearly inevitable to prevent the volcanic soils to be vulnerable from wind and water erosion. In the rainy season, however, thunderstorms take their toll on the soil since they make the land prone to flooding. This damage is in addition to the fact that the best lands are used for the production of cotton, while simultaneously polluting the coastal eco-system. The fertility of the soil was short lived in Central America, since after four or five years of consecutive cultivation the light soils of the coastal plain began to lose their natural fertility. This, in turn, led to the need to use chemicals to yield more crops per acre of land.
 In regards to cattle, Williams argues that the emerging demand for beef in the United States as a result of the fast food business precipitated the need to make subsistence plots in Latin America land for cattle grazing. For institutions like the World Bank, AID and IADB cattle was seen as a pragmatic, quick way to achieve export led growth. By most accounts, this land was carved from Central American forests. Swidden agriculture (slash and burn) practiced by indigenous allowed for the land to be regenerated after the patch had been abandoned. Under modern methods of forest clearing, the land is almost always relegated to remaining fallow. Modern methods of clearing have allowed for flatlands below the grazing grounds to become subject to flooding. Williams concludes that for those privileged enough to gain access to bank credit, the beef export boom meant a quick way to expand their fortunes, while for those who planted for survival it spelled impending doom.
3124526
Theda Skocpol's comparative history of three major social revolutions of the world is one of the leading academic books in this field. She investigates the French, Chinese and Russian revolutions and their commonalities.  Although many consider the French Revolution more of a bourgeois or political revolution than a peasant revolt her analysis and comparisons are nevertheless profound. Skocpol should be read in conjuction with Tocqueville's writings on the French Revolution to balance bias. Universities endorse this publication as a recommened reading for political and social sciences.
4150751
Mr. Galeano is one of Latin America's greatest leftist intellectuals. This book is a good read if you want to learn about how the left view's Latin American history. Like all books written with a bias it is witches brew of fact, fiction, and myth. Mr. Galeano is very much a leftist man of his generation though he said about Castro's Cuba "  I will repeat what I have previously said both on and away from the island: I do not and have never believed in single-party democracy (including in the US where there is a single party disguised as two) nor do I believe that the omnipotence of the state is a valid response to the omnipotence of the market. ". For scholars on Latin America this book is a must read just make sure you read more unbiased scholarly books.
830937
"When Colombia Bled: A History of the Violencia in Tolima," by James D. Henderson is a comprehensive, disciplined study of the breakdown of the political system in Colombia.  The author starts his text by explaining that next to the Mexican Revolution of 1910, Colombia's tragic conflict called "La Violencia" (1946-1956)is the longest, most destructive civil war to befall any nation in the Western Hemisphere during the twentieth century.
Henderson is a careful historian who explains that, "because Colombia's violence grew out of a long sociopolitical process it must be approached with sensitivity to the historical factors underlying it."  To this end, the author details how citizens were so thoroughly polarized and set against one another that many people thought the monolithic political corporations inside Colombia's two-party system fostered "hereditary hatreds." Still and all, the special feature of this text is that is presents a microcosm of a violent macrocosm.  In order to do this the author places the enormous violence in Tolima under a glaring spotlight.
The text is balanced.  Henderson explains how Liberals advanced the view that a reactionary "neo-Fascist group" headed by Laureano Gomez used both the army and police to commit the "crime of genocide" against political opposition inside the countryside.  He also shows how Conservatives circulated their own version of events in official government documents and in independently published monographic studies that "La Violencia" was part of a plot hatched by the communists to destroy Colombian civilization and that Liberals were their accomplices, or at best dupes in the scheme.
The Tolima spotlight exposes how joining a revolution to defend liberty or religion, doggedly supporting a discredited and powerless political party, or defending one's honor with machete and firearm were all consistent with values suffused in them by the Catholic Church, Colombia's traditional political parties, and a broader culture that encouraged exreme individualism within a context of hierarchy.  Moreover, political elites encouraged the violence for control of the national government and its lucrative patronage, according to the author.
This book is also filled with exhausting records about many of the guerrillas.  In particular, one guerrilla/bandit named "Chispas" who was know as the "Price of the Violentos" because he killed 592, wounded 81, disappeared two and kidnapped four. Henderson's narrative is complete.  He documents the start and finish of the violence right up to the return of civilian rule with the era coined, "The National Front."  This is a worthy text.  Highly recommended.
Bert Ruiz
1326672
Soy investigador en el tema de inyeccin en medios Porosos.  Este libro es la recopilacin perfecta de este tema.  He tenido la oportunidad de leer los artculo previos escritos por Whitaker y este libro es una gran recopilacion del autor y el punto de partida para todos aquellos Investigadores que desean consolidar las bases en el tema de Fenmenos de Transporte en Medios Porosos.  Se los recomiendo a todos los lectores.
1818818
Luis Urrieta's Working from Within is a landmark study of Chicano identity and its relationship with whitestream institutions and activism. Working from Within should be on the shelves of every library and student of identity, and it is instructive for anyone interested in studying subjectivity-identity as topics writ large.

Using life history, narrative interviews, ethnographic data, and working with constructivist understandings of subjectivity-identity, Urrieta narrates the contours of Chicana and Chicano identities. Mirroring a deeply painful and honest biographical dilemma regarding his own activist identity and ability to  enact change, his participants' stories explore critical conversations, engagement in activisms, and dilemmas of "authenticity" about selling out or being "down" for the Cause.

In the end, Urrieta, modest in his conclusion about local contextualized Chicano activisms, comes to understand his participants and himself as complex and  multiple folks in rejecting dualisms of either "authentic activists" or  "sell outs" his participants either desire to be or fear becoming.

What's important here is Urrieta's self-love (a crucial political act today), with which he embraces his participants, in narrating more ample critically conscious and progressive Chicano identities.
As a critically-conscious white educator trained by ex-Raza members in South Texas, it reminded me of the pleasures of coffee and conversation with the ones I love: Chicanos and many other identities...
Buy it--It's great!

James C. Jupp
Georgia Southern University