Promotions - Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles 2016 -

Rarely are readers presented with such a clear understanding of the struggles faced in Colombia during the past 100 years. Although anthropologist Gill (Vanderbilt Univ.) focuses on broad political and social issues in this powerful and important work, she humanizes them and brings them into perspective through her depiction of the people of one Colombian city. The author analyzes the historical changes faced by the people of the city of Barrancabermeja and illustrates the violence unleashed on them as they sought to reform and survive the changing politics and economic actors around them. Gill weaves together the historical development of the city's power struggles and the devastation and suffering of the city, and boldly looks into the future. She presents a hauntingly honest assessment of past struggles and future opportunities. An invaluable addition to understanding Colombia and its social, political, and class struggles, as well as those of the region and the larger world.Summing Up: Essential. All public and academic levels/libraries.

Benson's thoughtful book challenges many ideas about race in Cuba and in general. From reference to the 1912 massacre of supporters of the black political party (Independent Party of Color) to the author's personal account of how a Cuban clerk changed her racial identity on a visa application, Benson provides a thorough and nuanced account of race relations in Cuba. She focuses on the Cuban understanding of a raceless society as the legacy of independence leaders, white Jose Marti and black Antonio Maceo. Castro's revolution, led mostly by whites, adopted a goal of ending racism in Cuba that defined racism as economic rather than cultural. Postrevolutionary Cuba saw blacks and mulattos as dependent on the revolution, and expected obedience and appreciation. Benson provides individual stories showing how some Afro Cubans accepted their place in the revolution, while others challenged revolutionary leaders and highlighted continued racism in Cuba. The book provides a perspective not otherwise found in studies of the Cuban Revolution, and stresses Afro-descendants' ownership of their place in Cuba's history.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

Connectivity of people of African descent in the Caribbean and the mainland, inspiration of the black Jacobins to them, and the strategic importance of the 1791 black Jacobins slave revolt in Saint-Domingue feed into Horne's recognition of the failed trajectory of chattel slavery in the world of modern nation states. Besides providing a needed focus on the salience of international/economic relations in domestic race relations, Horne (Univ. of Houston) uses an array of primary sources to effectively focus on a less-evaluated factor--the presence of a self-governing sovereign territory--as a catalyst of the African American struggle to freedom and self-determination. The blatant and consistent self-interest of the major European powers toward Haiti and the latter's relations with the US in the 80 or so years after the 1791 revolt are justly recognized as a pivotal point of leverage for Haiti, as well as for African Americans, thrusting Haiti into a well-deserved prominence not usually asserted. Haiti's importance related to such events as diverse as the Louisiana Purchase, the struggle for abolition in Britain and the US, education and exposure to a legion of scholars and activists of African descent, the Dominican struggle for independence, and the near annexation of the Dominican Republic to the US all make Horne's work a must for serious scholars.Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.

From the 1880s to the 1920s, anarchism provided the principle framework for anti-capitalist thought in Latin America. Historians de Laforcade and Shaffer have achieved admirable success in documenting, challenging, and expanding understanding of this history. These leading scholars offer the first volume to summarize the diversity of historiographic approaches that characterize a new wave of research on anarchism. Thirteen empirical case studies provide state-of-the-art yet accessible analyses that significantly expand understanding of the role of anarchism in Latin America. Rather than a diffused influence from Europe, the authors illustrate how anarchism emerged simultaneously and transnationally in Latin America. Among the significant gains in the conceptual, temporal, and geographic reach of this volume is a demonstration of how anarchist influences spread to remote corners of the continent and extended well into the 20th century. Key themes that run throughout the book include how anarchists engaged issues of culture, race, gender, and sexuality in both urban and rural areas of the region. This book will long be a standard text that provides a important reference for scholars and students of labor and social movement history.Summing Up: Highly recommended. All levels/libraries.

The US acquired the island of Puerto Rico in 1898 and from that time until the 1965 death of the island's most prominent 20th-century nationalist leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, brutally repressed Puerto Rican nationalism. Journalist Denis's graphic account explains the destruction of the Puerto Rican nationalist movement through stories of US-sponsored blackmail, routine violation of civil liberties, harassment, medical experimentation, sterilization without consent, torture, unlawful imprisonment, outright assassination, and bombing not only of critics of US colonial rule but also of ordinary citizens. Though a handful of studies of US colonial rule in Puerto Rico exist, this account is unrivaled in its accessibility and raw emotion. Twenty-three short, vividly written chapters recount the sheer violence of US colonial rule in Puerto Rico through individual life stories, mostly gut-wrenchingly tragic and ill fated. Amid recent debates surrounding Puerto Rico's debt crisis, police brutality against mainland African Americans, and the denial of basic civil rights to women, LGBTQ people, and children of undocumented immigrants, this book offers some much-needed perspective on the ugly history of US racism and terrorism against its own citizens.Summing Up: Highly recommended. General, public, and undergraduate libraries.