Book Reviews


Organized chronologically by publication date. See also: Latin American History / Environmental History

Latest


The Tupac Amaru Rebellion: Charles Walker

Charles Walker left few stones unturned in The Tupac Amaru Rebellion, an impressive analysis of Spain’s largest colonial rebellion. This essay briefly examines two original arguments and two secondary claims made by Walker that help shape our understanding of an uprising that ultimately reached levels of total violence rarely seen in human history. Walker’s “seemingly…

Indigenous and Afro-Ecuadorians Facing the Twenty-First Century: Marc Becker

A collection of essays on the construction and emergence of ethnic identities in the Ecuadorian Andes, edited by Marc Becker. The authors of the volume examine Afro-Ecuadorians and indigenous communities through the lens of politics, culture, religion, gender, and the environment to better understand the array of social problems facing the country. French sociologist Manuela…

The History of Ecuador: George Lauderbaugh

George Lauderbaugh’s The History of Ecuador is a general survey of the country from pre-Colombian times to the present. In addition to biographical sketches of illustrious Ecuadorians, he focuses on three economic booms since 1890, the cacao boom of 1890—1914, the banana boom between 1948—1960, and the oil boom from 1970—1992. CitationLauderbaugh, George. The History…

The Inner Life of Empires: Emma Rothschild

Emma Rothschild’s Inner Life of Empires presents a “large microhistory” of the Johnstone family, eleven children, their parents, and two of their slaves, who lived and moved within influential social and intellectual circles during the eighteenth century Scottish Enlightenment (269). This prosopography traces the children’s lives across the British Empire as well as their friendships…

El Ecuador en la Historia: Jorge Nunez

El Ecuador en la Historia, by Jorge Nunez Sanchez, is a survey of national history from the pre-Columbian period to the modern nation-state, focusing more heavily on the twentieth century. The book sheds light on early indigenous protests of colonial rule, labor organization, and liberal reforms in the early twentieth century, as well as the…

Mining for the Nation: Jody Pavilack

When Chile granted literate men over the age of 21 the right to vote in 1925, a new era marked by the rise of mass society had begun.[1] Similar to processes unfolding around the world, the enfranchisement of progressively-larger swaths of Chile’s population in the early-twentieth century upended traditional politics and undermined the economic status…

The Deepest Wounds: Thomas Rogers

Thomas Rogers’ The Deepest Wounds argues that Pernambuco sugar planters “saw no distinction between land and labor” (8). Enslaved and free workers on cane plantations were demoted in elites’ eyes to a level equal with the animals and the earth – merely another natural resource to be commanded by the planters (72-73). This monograph shows…

Ugly Stories of the Peruvian Agrarian Reform: Enrique Mayer

Enrique Mayer’s Ugly Stories of Peruvian Agrarian Reform, a “people-oriented kind of oral history,” provides a memory study of the 1969 land reforms enacted by Peruvian President Juan Velasco Alvarado. Written from the perspective of historical stakeholders and incorporating Mayer’s lifelong participation in the reforms as an academic observer, he weaves a series of testimonies…

Late Pre-Hispanic Chiefdoms of Highland Ecuador: Bray

Bray, Tamara L. “Late Pre-Hispanic Chiefdoms of Highland Ecuador.” In The Handbook of South American Archaeology, 527–44. New York: Springer, 2008. Tamara Bray contributed this chapter to The Handbook of South American Archaeology, edited by Helaine Silverman and William Isbell, surveying the three major socio-political regions of the early Ecuadorian Andes: the Caranqui, Puruha, and…

Gabriel García Moreno and Conservative State Formation in the Andes: Henderson

Peter Henderson’s Gabriel García Moreno and Conservative State Formation in the Andes, analyzes nineteenth-century debates over modernization and state formation during the administration of Ecuadorian President Gabriel Garcia Moreno, one of the country’s most controversial politicians. Henderson focuses on five major themes: the creation of political networks, regionalism, the liberal-conservative ideological divide, caudillismo, and perennial…

Courage Tastes of Blood: Florencia Mallon

Florencia Mallon’s 2005 book, Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906-2001, examines the history of a Mapuche indigenous community in southern Chile, focusing on their defense of land and culture in the face of State colonization from 1906 to 2001. Her monograph places archival documents in dialogue…

Mastery, Tyranny, & Desire: Trevor Burnard

Death in the sun-drenched fields or torture in the shade of the house? Resistance or collaboration? How did enslaved Africans cope with the trauma of life on Anglo-Jamaican sugar plantations in the eighteenth century? These are some of the very disturbing questions Trevor Burnard tackles in chapter six of Mastery, Tyranny, & Desire, where he…

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