Book Description
Columbus arrived on North American shores in 1492, and Cortés had replaced Moctezuma, the Aztec Nahua emperor, as the major figurehead in central Mexico by 1521. Five centuries later, the convergence of "old" and "new" worlds and the consequences of colonization continue to fascinate and horrify us. In "Transcending Conquest," Stephanie Wood uses Nahuatl writings and illustrations to reveal Nahua perspectives on Spanish colonial occupation of the Western Hemisphere.
Mesoamerican peoples have a strong tradition of pictorial record keeping, and out of respect for this tradition, Wood examines multiple examples of pictorial imagery to explore how Native manuscripts have depicted the European invader and colonizer. She has combed national and provincial archives in Mexico and visited some of the Nahua communities of central Mexico to collect and translate Native texts. Analyzing and interpreting changes in indigenous views and attitudes throughout three hundred years of foreign rule, Wood considers variations in perspectives--between the indigenous elite and the laboring classes, and between those who resisted and those who allied themselves with the European intruders.
Book Description
From Liberal to Revolutionary Oaxaca aims at finally setting Mexican history free of stereotypes about the southern state of Oaxaca, long portrayed as a traditional and backward society resistant to the forces of modernization and marginal to the Revolution. Chassen-López challenges this view of Oaxaca as a negative mirror image of modern Mexico, presenting in its place a much more complex reality. Her analysis of the confrontations between Mexican liberals' modernizing projects and Oaxacan society, especially indigenous communal villages, reveals not only conflicts but also growing linkages and dependencies. She portrays them as engaging with and transforming each other in an ongoing process of contestation, negotiation, and compromise.
The book is organized in three parts. The first examines Oaxaca's infrastructure and economy, addressing whether its native sons, Presidents Benito Juárez and Porfirio Díaz, neglected their own state in the drive toward Mexico's modernization. The second part looks at the society, studying the dynamic interplay of class, ethnicity, and gender and critically examining claims that the indigenous people of Oaxaca acted as an obstacle to progress. The final part connects the economic and social transformations in Oaxaca with the state's changing political culture and power relationships and reinserts Oaxaca into the larger dynamics of the Mexican Revolution. By linking developments at the local, state, and national levels throughout and making frequent comparisons with developments in other states, Chassen-López compels a reassessment not only of Oaxacan history but of Mexican history in general during this period.
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- paranoid pursuits: the FBI against the refugees
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Communazis: FBI Surveillance of German Emigre Writers
Alexander Stephan
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
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ASIN: 0300082029 |
Book Description
Thousands of writers, artists, filmmakers, and intellectuals fled Germany in the 1930s. Many settled in the United States, hoping to find allies against Nazism and a safe refuge from Hitler’s Gestapo. But in America nearly all of the exiled authors—among them Nobel Prize recipient Thomas Mann, his brother Heinrich, dramatist Bertolt Brecht, and novelists Erich Remarque and Lion Feuchtwanger—became the subjects of intense suspicion and government surveillance. This riveting book, based on secret FBI files released for the first time to Alexander Stephan under the provisions of the Freedom of Information and Privacy Acts, reveals the disturbing details and the surprising extent of government surveillance operations conducted against German exiles during World War II and the McCarthy era.
Not only the FBI but also the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the House Un-American Activities Committee, and other agencies spied on the German émigrés. Wiretaps were installed, mail was routinely opened and read, records of visitors were maintained. Searches—not always with legal warrants—were conducted, informants hired, and connections to exile writers established (Thomas Mann’s daughter, Erika, volunteered her insights). Stephan sets these activities in historical context and discusses the widespread xenophobia and paranoia that surrounded Nazism and Communism, which were frequently conflated in the public imagination. The author illuminates the relationship not only between German anti-Nazis and U.S. politics of the period but also between intellectuals and the modern surveillance state.
Customer Reviews:
paranoid pursuits: the FBI against the refugees.......2002-08-25
As Hitler consolidated his grip on power in Germany during the 1930s, thousands of intellectuals, Jews, Communists, artists, and dissidents found themselves under increasing pressure to leave. As the Nazis filled the booming concentration camps with their various opponents, many of these justly frightened targets of Nazi repression fled Germany for safer harbors beyond the reach of Nazi influence or control. But as the decade progressed, the sphere of "safe harbors" diminished, and in a decade of Depression, xenophobia, and rising national chauvinism, these refugees faced hostility and suspicion nearly everywhere they went. Among these refugees were writers and poets like Thomas and Heinrich Mann, playwrights like Bertolt Brecht, scientists like Albert Einstein, and a wide range of others including people like Anna Seghers, Herbert Marcuse, and Theodore Adorno. Some of these refugees -- the lucky ones, in light of what happened to many of those who were forced to remain in Nazi Europe -- made it to the United States.
But the United States was also wrestling with a Depression; racism and anti-Semitism were facts of American life, and red scare paranoia already had developed a tradition in this country closely connected to anxieties about immigration and cultural modernism. However bright the intellects with which these refugees might be gifted, or however shining their intellectual and cultural achievements, they remained for J. Edgard Hoover and the FBI dangerously "Other", and therefore dangerous and suspicious. In this book Stephan documents the extensive surveillance, both legal and illegal, that the FBI pursued in attempting to identify the potential national security risk posed by these refugees, who after all were mostly from Germany, although in many cases they were Jews, Socialists, or Communists who had no sympathy with that detested and thuggish National Socialist regime. However, J. Edgar Hoover did not make much distinction between Nazis and Communists as far as the potential security threat was concerned; to Hoover, these refugees might be seen as "Communazis" -- thus the title. It is also depressing to see how some of these refugees turned on others, working as informants for the FBI, intensifying the web of suspicion and paranoia under which these hapless refugees were forced to exist.
As far as I am concerned, this extensive FBI surveillance of refugees and dissidents from a brutal, racist regime was both deplorable and useless (it is telling that Hoover saw the fact that many of these refugees were wanted by the German police as a mark against the refugees -- even if the police were the notorious Gestapo). But even if the reader does not share my view on this, the reader will find in the pages of Stephan's book highly informative. It is a useful documentation of the systematic national police surveillance of private individuals, which occurred as part of the development of the national security state apparatus that emerged during and after the Second World War. Whatever one's views of Hoover and the FBI, one will find this book a valuable addition to studies on domestic police surveillance against real or potential political dissent.
Book Description
Using excerpts primarily drawn from Bernal Diaz's 1632 account of the Spanish victory and from testimonies--many recently uncovered--of indigenous Nahua survivors gathered by Bernardino de Sahagun, Victors and Vanquished clearly demonstrates how personal interests, class and ethnic biases, and political considerations can influence interpretation of events. A substantial introduction is followed by 9 chronological sections that illuminate the major events and personalities in this powerful historical episode and reveal the changing attitudes toward European expansionism.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent sourcebook for teaching college history.......2005-11-09
This well edited text brings students the documents behind the stories they may have read in high school textbooks. How did the Spanish conquer the spectacular city of Tenochtitlan with so few soldiers and in alien territory? The documents tell how they exploited alliances that were already in place. With hundreds of Tlaxcalan warriors accompanying them, housing them, feeding men and horses alike, the group of Spaniards was able to approach Tenochtitlan, make themselves unwelcome, and barely escape from the city alive... A fascinating read.
My Review.......2004-10-02
When the British Empire relinquished control to India, the jewel in the British crown, it became evident the age of Imperial European expansionism had come to an end. The period of global decolonization following World War II paved the way for a more critical approach to colonial history. The Euro-centric historical narratives of the colonial conquests were no longer acceptable within the academic community or for that matter entirely accurate. Stuart B. Schwartz a Professor of History at Yale University has set out to ensure the history of the conquest of Mexico is not written exclusively by the winners, but rather to present a fair and balanced compilation of European and Native American primary sources complemented by his own expert analysis. "Additional alternate texts paint a broader, richer canvas, fleshing out the narrative and conveying to the reader a sense that there was not simply a "Spanish" or an "Indian" view. Rather, there are a variety of visions and opinions, influenced and mediated by personal interests, class and ethnic biases, political considerations, and many other factors."
The introduction provides the reader with a comprehensive description of Mesoamerican and Spanish societies on the eve of the conquest. Included is the rise to power of the Mexica Empire through conquest and expansion and the foundation of the empire's island capital at Tenochtitlan. The author describes the historical background of the primary sources which constitute the majority of the narrative. Nahua sources are drawn primarily from The Florentine Codex, a post-conquest study of indigenous history and culture conducted by literate natives under the auspices of a Spanish missionary named Fray Bernardino De Sahagun. Erudite natives rather quickly adopted the Roman alphabet, for the most part abandoning the use of Nahuatl hieroglyphics, and by the late 1500's were capable of writing both Spanish and Nahuatl. However, the reader is advised of the existence of tribal differences and patron appeasement reflected within the codex as historical partiality as the greater part of Sahagun's indigenous informants were from Tlatelolco, a city under Tenochtitlan political control, and highly critical of the Mexica Empire and Montezuma. The principal Spanish source is Bernal Diaz del Castillo's book The True History of the Conquest of New Spain which chronicles the conquest from a soldier's perspective. Despite the wandering and crude prose of Bernal Diaz, his account documents the typical conquistador's motivations and justifications for the conquest, reveals the true scope of the clash of cultures beginning with the first encounters up to the fall of Tenochtitlan, and provides indispensable anecdotes from a human voice and mind of reason which serve to bring the events and personalities of the conquest to life for the student of Mesoamerican history.
The book is divided into eight chapters proceeding in chronological order from 1518-1521. Each section is preceded by a succinct analysis of the documents, the biases to avoid and the themes to concentrate upon. Integrated among the sources are useful maps, both ancient and modern, and paintings, both Spanish and Native American, which are complemented with academically irrefutable analysis and interpretations.
The first chapter entitled "Forebodings and Omens" deals primarily with a mysterious comet, an unexplained temple fire attributed to vindictive gods, and a weeping prophetic woman in the streets of Tenochtitlan which ominously preceded the tragic death of the empire. The mysterious premonitions are largely attributable to post-conquest indigenous attempts at justifying the procedures of their government. The aforementioned is particularly conspicuous in the legend of Quetzalcoatl, a god/man who left Tenochtitlan in the eastward direction, vowing to return in claim of his land. Thus, as Cortes arrived from the east, the Nahua mistook the Spaniard to be Quetzalcoatl. However, Schwartz informs the reader the myth of Quetzalcoatl is most likely a defense for Montezuma's vacillation. The second chapter "Preparations" concerns the backgrounds of the conquistadors and how Hernando Cortes came to lead the expedition.
The third chapter "Encounters" relies heavily upon Bernal Diaz's account of the first cross-cultural encounters at Cozumel and the Yucatan. Hernando Cortes is portrayed displaying his horses and cannons to frighten the natives at every chance that presented itself as both a joke and a military tactic. Both Spanish and native accounts however focus on the importance of interpreters such as Dona Marina, diplomacy, and the exchange of gifts in the interactions between the two civilizations. The fourth chapter "The March Inland: Tlaxcala and Cholula" in which Schwartz explains the strategic alliance between the Spanish and the Tlaxcalans, arrived at after a fierce battle, often neglected from native accounts. The Spanish-Tlaxcala alliance was of paramount importance in helping a band of approximately a thousand Spaniards turn the tide against an empire of warriors. However, after the battle for Tenochtitlan, the Tlaxcalans were offered no special consideration by the conquerors, resulting in distortion of the differentiation between historical victors and vanquished. After consummating the alliance at Tlaxcala, the Spanish arrive at Cholula where they are at first cordially accepted but were apparently deceived by the Cholulans. Here history becomes vague as the actors attempt to justify, excuse, or condemn, nonetheless the result was a bloodbath. Adres de Tapia, a Spanish conquistador justifies the Cholula massacre as a provoked attack to prevent a planned ambush. While the native accounts differ because of post-conquest patron appeasements, the consensus leaned toward an unprovoked slaughter.
In chapters five and six Schwartz compares indigenous and Spanish accounts of Cortes' arrival at the island capital which are remarkably equivalent with the exception of the native's bewilderment at the deer upon which the Spaniards were mounted and the Spanish comparison of the city of Tenochtitlan to Venice, Italy. Nonetheless, the sense of awe and astonishment are present throughout both accounts. Conversely, the versions disagree over the incident at Toxcatl with the Indians claiming an unprovoked massacre and the Spaniards claiming Pedro de Alvarado was merely foiling a rebellion. Likewise, the tragic death of Montezuma is portrayed differently in each account. The Tlatelocans appear angered equally by the death of their leader and the capitulation of their leader while the Spanish are mournful of the death of Montezuma. The pure emotion surrounding the foreboding death of the emperor is evident in Bernal Diaz's account when he laments: "Cortes wept for him, and all of us Captains and soldiers, and there was no man among us who knew him and was intimate with him, who did not bemoan him as though he were our father"
Chapters seven and eight refer to the final defeat of the city of Tenochtitlan and the protracted effects of the conquest, colonial rule, and cultural syncretism. Schwartz reveals the glory and sophistication of Mexica civilization, its valiant resistance as it gasped its last breaths at Tenochtitlan, and its resilience under colonial rule. Bernal Diaz's account of the fierce native resistance, the siege of Tenochtitlan and the final defeat of the empire is characterized by his intense reverence of the courage, strength and resiliency of the natives. The native account of the defeat drawn from The Florentine Codex encapsulates the tragedy of the annihilation of the civilization: "the Spainiards took things from people by force. They were looking for gold; they cared nothing for green-stone, precious feathers, or turquoise. Then they burned some of them on the mouth [branded them]; and...the weapons were laid down and we collapsed"
Criticism of Victors and Vanquished can only be directed at the personal agendas, political motivations, class, ethnic, and religious biases contained within the primary sources themselves which supplant historical fact with historical subjectivism. Schwartz reminds the reader that historical scholarship is constructed upon a foundation of anecdotal primary sources and it is the endeavor of the scholar to interpret and distinguish the factual from the tainted and distorted. Schwartz emphasizes the Sisyphean task of creating a true accurate history and invites debate inquiring, "What is a "true" history?"
Nonetheless, the author equips the wary reader with a concise analysis preceding each primary source allowing the scholar to continue reading cognizant of biases to avoid and themes to concentrate upon. His writing style is neither loquacious nor deficient, but rather Schwartz provides the ideal amount of flawless and meticulous analysis all the while exhibiting his dominant command of the subject. Stuart B. Schwartz's Victors and Vanquished is an unprecedented and enriching academic breakthrough in the interpretation of the past, deviating from the archaic tradition of history dictated exclusively by conquerors to a balanced and even-handed scholarship shining light on victors and vanquished alike.
ZC
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At the Edge of the World: Caves and Late Classic Maya World View
Karen Bassie-Sweet
Manufacturer: University of Oklahoma Press
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Images from the Underworld: Naj Tunich and the Tradition of Maya Cave Painting
ASIN: 0806128291 |
Book Description
"Literally, chilaquiles are a breakfast I grew up eating: fried corn tortillas with tomato-chile sauce. Symbolically, they are the culinary metaphor for how working-class women speak with the seasoning of their food."-from the Introduction
Through the ages and across cultures, women have carved out a domain in which their cooking allowed them to express themselves, strengthen family relationships, and create a world of shared meanings with other women. In Voices in the Kitchen, Meredith E. Abarca features the voices of her mother and several other family members and friends, seated at their kitchen tables, to share the grassroots world view of these working-class Mexican and Mexican American women.
In the kitchen, Abarca demonstrates, women assert their own sazón (seasoning), not only in their cooking but also in their lives. Through a series of oral histories, or charlas culinarias (culinary chats), the women interviewed address issues of space, sensual knowledge, artistic and narrative expression, and cultural and social change. From her mother's breakfast chilaquiles to the most elaborate traditional dinner, these women share their lives as they share their savory, symbolic, and theoretical meanings of food.
The charlas culinarias represent spoken personal narratives, testimonial autobiography, and a form of culinary memoir, one created by the cooks-as-writers who speak from their kitchen space. Abarca then looks at writers-as-cooks to add an additional dimension to the understanding of women's power to define themselves.
Voices in the Kitchen joins the extensive culinary research of the last decade in exploring the importance of the knowledge found in the practical, concrete, and temporal aspects of the ordinary practice of everyday cooking.
Book Description
This work offers an exploration into the worldview and social organization in a Zapotec town called Ixtepeji where people believe the world is threatening and filled with dangerous beings! Within the realm of cognitive anthropology, the author continually asks, "How do the people perceive their situation?" Through interview data and case histories the main topic unfolds of how Ixtepejanos perceive reality and how such perceptions affect, and in turn are affected by, the conduct of village life.
Book Description
Dedicated to the world's marginalized people, this exhaustively documented text studies that United States' social welfare system in comparison to international approaches with extensive coverage of the systems in Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan, Mexico, and Norway. This timely offering coincides with social work's growing international commitment, and explores how this concern affects the profession on both individual and policy-making levels. Initially van Wormer describes social work's historical beginnings and then establishes the groundwork for contemporary practice. The text meets CSWE's requirement that the social work curriculum provide content on discrimination, economic deprivation, and oppression and their effects on people of color, women, and gay and lesbian persons. Knowledge of these dynamics will prompt social work students to accept their role as citizens of not just their own countries, but also of the world.
Customer Reviews:
Social Work: A World View.......2003-09-06
I wanted to share that I recently took a copy of Dr. Van Wormer's book Social Welfare: A World View off my personal book shelf. I am currently practicing Medical Social Work in a Rural Hospital Community and use it often as a reference.
I am fascinated by her ability to bring complicated issues down to an easy and understandable level. I work with a wide variety of racial and ethnic groups, and sometimes, keeping up on an international perspective helps me out tremendously by broading my view in critical areas. Dr. Van Wormer's book helps me to keep focus on my clients and what their needs may be, in a culturally broad perspective. It helps keep me grounded and is a wonderful resource.
It also helps me to see, how far we all have to go, to get Social Welfare Services and our commitment to it, to the people needing those services... where it really truly needs to be. By being able to see how other countries utilize their social welfare programs, we see the need to utilize our own educational or professional advocacy skills to cry out for better and stronger social welfare programs to help people of every nation (this includes the United States) stand tall, secure, and proud. Thanks for a wonderful resource book. I highly recommend this book.
Troublesome.......2003-09-01
I've only just begun this book. I like the concept of comparing the U.S. social welfare scene with that in other countries. I'm having a lot of trouble getting through what's written, though. For example, in Chatper 1, I read one small paragraph four or five times, and I can't come up with a reasonable interpretation for what the author is trying to say. I asked someone else to try, and she failed too.
If I understood the introductory material correctly, the first chapter of this book is unique among all chapters in that it presents theoretical and definitional background material. I'm hoping that the remaining chapters, with their proposed topical focus, will have a corresponding focus in their prose and presentation.
An impressive work summarizing well global welfare issues........1999-07-10
This very impressive work summarizes well the historical foundations of social welfare policy in the United States, yet within a global context, so rarely, if ever, seen in welfare policy texts. With scholarship and eloquence it also summarizes major social welfare policies in numerous countries, including, but not limited to, Canada, the United Kingdom, Russia, Japan, Australia and Norway. It also is sensitive to the situations of marginalized groups, such as Indigenous people worldwide, African Americans, Hispanics, and gay and lesbians. It is must reading for anyone desiring a thorough knowledge of social welfare policies within a global context in order to engage in social action toward a socially just world committed to human rights principles.
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- Definitely one of Michener's 2 best books.
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Mexico
Cliff Hollenbeck , and
Nancy Hollenbeck
Manufacturer: Graphic Arts Center Pub Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1558682007 |
Book Description
A photographic essay through the country's distinct regions captures the vibrant essence of Mexico, its people, and culture.
Customer Reviews:
Definitely one of Michener's 2 best books........1998-09-06
Mexico is simply stunning. I couldn't put it down. A fabulous story of rememberence and love for a nation. The amazing bullfight sequences are superbly written, and more amazing details could not have been seen if one had been there. A must read for anyone interested in Mexico, Spain, or just wanting to read a GREAT book.
Books:
- Triangle: The Fire That Changed America
- Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West
- Venice and the Islamic World, 828-1797
- Yup'ik Elders at the Ethnologisches Museum Berlin: Fieldwork Turned On Its Head
- 1776
- A Code of Jewish Ethics: Volume 1: You Shall Be Holy
- A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature
- A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900
- A House for Mr. Biswas
- A Path with Heart: A Guide Through the Perils and Promises of Spiritual Life
Books Index
Books Home
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- English Pronouncing Dictionary with CD-ROM
- Art: 21: Art in the 21st Century 3
- Architecture, Poetry, and Number in the Royal Palace at Caserta
- Stedman's Bergey's Bacteria Words
Mesoamerican Voices: Native Language Writings from Colonial Mexico, Yucatan, and Guatemala
Victors and Vanquished: Spanish and Nahua Views of the Conquest of Mexico (The Bedford Series in History and Culture)
Rebellious Nuns: The Troubled History of a Mexican Convent, 1752-1863
From Bomba to Hip-Hop
