History / Latin America

Austin, Texas, U.S.A.: Univ of Texas Press, 1997. First Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. In the 1950s, Darryl Cole-Christensen and his family were among the first settlers of the Coto Brus, an almost impenetrable, mountainous rain forest region of south-eastern Costa Rica. In this evocative book, he captures the elemental struggles and rewards of settling a new frontier - an experience forever closed to most people in Western, urbanized society. With the perspective of more than 40 years' residence in the Coto Brus, the author ably describes both the settlers' dreams of bringing civilization and progress to the rain forest and the sweeping and irreversible changes they caused throughout the ecosystem as they cut the rain forest down. Writing neither to apologize for nor to defend their actions, he instead illuminates the personal and subjective factors that cause people to risk danger and hardship for the uncertain rewards of settling a frontier. 243 pages. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Austin, Texas, U.S.A.: Univ of Texas Press, 1998. First Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. Guatemala has undergone an unprecedented conversion to Protestantism since the 1970s, so that 30 percent of its people now belong to Protestant churces, more than in any other Latin American nation. To illuminate some of the causes of this phenomenon, Virginia Garrard-Burnett here offers the first history in English of Protestantism in Guatemala, focusing specifically on the rise on non-Catholic Christianity in relation to Guatemala's ethnic and political history. The author finds that while Protestant missionaries were early valued for their medical clinics, schools, translation projects, and especially for the counterbalance they provided against Roman Catholicism, Protestantism itself attracted few converts until the 1960s. Since the, however, the militarization of the state, increasing public violence, and the "globalization" of Guatemalan national politics have undermined the traditional ties of kinship, custom, and belief that gave Guatemalans a sense of identity, and many are turning to Protestantism to recreate a sense of order, identity, and belonging. 248 pages including notes, bibliography, and an index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Durham, North Carolina, U.S.A.: Duke Univ Press, 2001. No Edition. Soft Cover. Near Fine/No Jacket. Photographs. During the 20th century the Mexican government invested in the creation and promotion of a national culture more aggressively than any other state in the western hemisphere. This book provides a comprehensive cultural history of the vibrant, post-1940 Mexico that emerged. In understanding this period of Mexican history, the volume's contributors weigh in on a wealth of topics from music, tourism, television and sports to theater, unions art, and magazines. Each essay in its own way addresses the fragmentation of a cultural consensus that prevailed during the "golden age" of post-revolutionary prosperity, a time when the state was still successfully bolstering its power with narratives of modernization and shared community. This is a marvelous book! 505 pages; the top and bottom front corners are a bit worn. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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Austin, Texas, U.S.A.: Univ of Texas Press, 1997. First Publishers Edition. Soft Cover. New/No Jacket. The encounter between Native American peoples and Europeans and their descendants has marked the history of every nation in the Americas, both North and South. Lucio Mansilla's Una excursion a los indios ranqueles, published in Argentina in 1870, is one of very few works in American letters that presents a vivid, firsthand account of a noncombative encounter between Native American and European civilizations. This volume is the first English translation of Mansilla's classic work. Long noted for its humor, adventurousness, and narrative ingenuity, the book offers penetrating insights into fundamental issues of "civilization and barbarism," immigration, ethnic and racial diversity, and land ownership and tenancy. Mansilla alone among his contemporaries espoused open dialogue as the best approach to the "Indian problem." Although the peace accord he sought to enact with the Ranquels was summarily disregarded by the Argentine government, which slowly gravitated toward a policy of ethnic cleansing and expropriation of Indian lands, this book does narrate a rehearsal for reconciliation that in the end never took place. 418 pages including a glossary, notes, bibliography, and an index. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. more information

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United Kingdom: Sutton Pub Ltd, 2000. First Edition. Hard Cover. New/New. Photographs and Drawings. The Inca civilization of Peru was one of the greatest of the ancient civilizations of the Americas. Famous for their massive temples and fortresses built from huge blocks of stone and decorated with sheets of pure gold, the Incas also developed a system of government, capable of holding a vast area of territory together, and an extensive system of roads, connecting administrative centers, which acted as a means of colonization. In the 1530s the Spanish, led by the conquistador Pizarro, arrived in Peru. In their search for gold, they devastated the Inca culture, destroying its treasures, killings its leaders and bringing to an end the infrastructure of its empire. By the 1570s native American control in Peru had been completely lost and the civilization was no more. With Pizarro came one Mansio Serra de Leguizamon, who became the last of the Spanish conquistadors to die. This book tells his amazing story. He died at the age of 78, leaving a unique and famous apology for the conquest in his will. This book takes that remarkable document as its starting point, weaving a fascinating, sometimes disturbing tale of the vicious subjugation of the Inca civilization. 206 pages, including the will, his testimonial of past service addressed to King Phillip II, Inca testimonies, glossary and place names, notes, and an index. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall. more information

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