Central category: 1451 books

Violence in Central America, especially when directed against Indian populations, is not a new phenomenon. Yet few studies of the region have focused specifi cally on the relationship between Indians and the state, a relationship that may hold the key to understanding these conflicts. In this volume,...

In this new analysis of Honduran social and political development, Dar degreeso Euraque explains why Honduras escaped the pattern of revolution and civil wars suffered by its neighbors Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Within this comparative framework, he challenges the traditional Banana Republic...

El Salvador might be the smallest country in Central America by territory but it has had a significant impact on the region and played an important role in U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America. The country’s history is intertwined with the struggles for self-determination and sovereignty both...

In the past fifty years, the study of indigenous and pre-Columbian art has evolved from a groundbreaking area of inquiry in the mid-1960s to an established field of research. This period also spans the career of art historian Esther Pasztory. Few scholars have made such a broad and lasting impact...

Hailed when first published in Spanish in 1988 as one of the best contemporary examples of Latin American critical thought, Josefina Ludmer’s El género gauchesco describes the emergence of gaucho poetry—which uses the voice of the cowboy of the Argentine pampas for political purposes—as an...

"Quite the contrary of old generals, nations do not fade away; they have to be killed." Richard Adams' view of the nation as a basic social unit is central to this pioneering study in social anthropology. The result of many years of research in Guatemala, this volume utilizes the author's fieldwork as...

La ficción literaria y los textos elaborados a partir de hechos reales se hermanan en este libro al proponer, cada una desde su óptica y recursos particulares, una mirada sobre el mismo material: las cosas ya ocurridas, la historia, en el campo del arte literario. Fruto de la larga trayectoria de...

Tajikistan is Central Asia's smallest and least understood country. Epic mountain landscapes, glacial lakes and the mighty Oxus River encircle ancient Buddhist sites, Silk Road trading posts, medieval shrines and planned Soviet cities. The guide includes tried and tested trekking routes in the Fann,...

To many observers, Anastasio Somoza, who ruled Nicaragua from 1936 until his assassination in 1956, personified the worst features of a dictator. While not dismissing these characteristics, Knut Walter argues that the regime was in fact more notable for its achievement of stability, economic growth,...

A smashing good true story about a young Yankee trapped in tropical Central America, exploring a strange parallel universe of three thousand years of victimization and blood letting. Experience his coming of age with foreigners, captivated by thier strange beauty and bizarre customs that our hero...

A History of Ecology and Environmentalism in Spanish American Literature undertakes a comprehensive ecocritical examination of the region’s literature from the foundational texts of the nineteenth century to the most recent fiction. The book begins with a consideration of the way in which Argentine...

Children possess national and ethnic identity, whether or not we want them to, and often that identity includes elements of their own devising. Since independence, the Belizean government has sought to promote a national Belizean identity by recognizing the cultures of its multiple ethnic groups,...

Situated at the intersection of cultural heritage and local community, this book enlarges our understanding of the Indigenous peoples of southern México and northern Central America who became detached from “the ancient Maya” through colonialism, government actions, and early twentieth-century...

Tatiana Proskouriakoff, a preeminent student of the Maya, made many breakthroughs in deciphering Maya writing, particularly in demonstrating that the glyphs record the deeds of actual human beings, not gods or priests. This discovery opened the way for a history of the Maya, a monumental task that Proskouriakoff...