J. Lat. Amer. Stud.

40, 793847 f 2008 Cambridge University Press Printed in the United Kingdom

793

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J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008). doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004768

Steven Topik, Carlos Marichal and Zephyr Frank (eds.), From Silver to Cocaine : Latin American Commodity Chains and the Building of the World Economy, 15002000 (Durham and London : Duke University Press, 2006), pp. 377, 64.00, 14.95 pb. Today Latin America is experiencing a commodity export boom, a super-cycle in the jargon of some observers, that makes many an economic historian of the region feel like they are experiencing a case of deja-vu. This is particularly true of those ` historians who study what Steven Topik, one of the editors of this collection, some years ago (along with Allen Wells, a contributor to the volume) referred to as Latin Americas second conquest , i.e. the period in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries when Latin American economies were inserted into the global economy through their exports of primary commodities. Some things have changed: Brazil and Argentina continue to export coee and meat, but it is soya beans and hydrocarbons that really matter these days. The conquerors of this third conquest are also dierent : true, the US and Britain are still around, but there are a number of new kids on the block, including China which imports much of the soya, copper and iron ore produced in the region (soy exports to China from Brazil and Argentina increased tenfold from US$360 million to US$3.6 billion between 1999 and 2004). Up to eleven percent of Chinese FDI is now tied up in the region, with other countries also playing an increasingly important role, in particular Spain, the country responsible, with Portugal, of course, of the rst conquest and the rst commodity export boom a boom in which China, as the nal destination of much of the silver extracted by the Spanish in Mexico and the Andes, also played a key role. The timeliness of this volume should therefore be evident. Surprisingly, no reference is made in the book to its relevance to current developments in Latin Americas political economy. This may be unfortunate from one point of view but perfectly understandable and commendable from another. Media-conscious research councils, cash-strapped academic publishers and governments anxious to justify blue-sky academic research to taxpayers may disagree, but serious historians know that conjunctural political or economic concerns are usually poor guides to good research agendas. The editors and contributors to this volume have an unglamorous but important research agenda : to further complicate the ways in which historians of Latin America, for some time now, have approached the study of commodities. They do so by globalising the analysis of commodities because they believe, correctly, that the nation-state is an inadequate, or insucient, unit of analysis for commodities. Indeed, what makes this collection stand out with respect to previous studies of Latin Americas commodity-driven insertion into the global economy is the sustained attention it oers to how such an insertion was shaped by developments occurring throughout the commodity chain connecting producers in Latin America and consumers elsewhere (and not just, as is sometimes assumed,

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in the industrial core countries). By viewing Latin Americas commodity history as part of a broader history of global interconnection, the volume also opens up new vistas on the complex interplay of economic, social, political, cultural and environmental factors in shaping the history of the region. In short, the editors and contributors have done a fantastic service to Latin American historians by showing convincingly how commodities are good to think about Latin America and about Latin Americas interaction with the global economy. The chapters can be usefully read like biographies tracing the global social life of silver, indigo, cochineal, tobacco, coee, sugar, cacao, bananas, guano and nitrates, rubber, henequen and cocaine. Although the introduction and conclusion help to establish a series of connecting themes, the chapters are inevitably dierent in many respects. These dierences reect, beyond the distinct histories of each commodity, each contributors particular research interests, favoured methodological approach, and theoretical proclivities. As a consequence, some chapters give more weight to the production end of the commodity chain, while others focus more on the consumption side of the story. Similarly, some chapters are more economic , others more social , and yet others, more cultural or more environmental in their general approach, in the sense that they pay attention to these themes and are informed by the respective methodological and theoretical perspectives specic to those historical sub-disciplines. But the character of the chapters is also to some extent dictated by the literature upon which they build. Some, such as those on coee and sugar, draw on an immense and still expanding body of scholarship that connects various countries in the region. Others, such as those on guano, nitrates and henequen, draw on a signicantly smaller scholarly literature, focused on a small group of countries, that has not much been revised of late. Others still, such as the chapters on bananas and cocaine, draw on recent and groundbreaking archival research. Despite these dierences, or perhaps because of them, the volume constitutes a uniquely useful tool with which to explore the interplay of the global history of commodities and a whole range of themes central to the history of Latin America from a comparative perspective. Some of these themes have been around for a while and connect to older debates that were central to dependency approaches or the informal imperialism debate. Others, particularly those that arise from approaches informed by cultural and environmental history, are new and point to further opportunities for research. To the credit of the editors and contributors, the volume does not oer any facile conclusions about the good or bad of Latin Americas commodity history, but it does not shy away either from pointing to the various ways in which commodity production produced conditions of exploitation. Similarly, although several chapters point to the important agency of Latin American commodity producers engaged in asymmetric relations of power with foreign economic or political actors, the volume eschews simplistic stories of heroic resistance to globalising forces. The editors conclude by reminding readers of a number of other commodities that shaped the history of Latin Americas insertion into the global economy : wheat, wool, hides, meat, tin, copper and petroleum. If they decide to publish a revised and expanded volume incorporating these commodities, may I suggest that they make a small concession to the present conjuncture and that they opt for a new title : From Silver to Soya. University of Manchester
PAULO DRINOT

Reviews
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008). doi:10.1017/S0022216X0800477X

795

Rebecca P. Brienen and Margaret A. Jackson (eds.), Invasion and Transformation: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Conquest of Mexico (Boulder, CO : University Press of Colorado, 2008), pp. xii+231, $55.00, hb. Of late, a growing coterie of scholars have revisited Spanish and Mesoamerican narratives of the conquest of Mexico. Rebecca Brienens and Margaret Jacksons anthology adds to this conversation in valuable ways. The common point of departure is the Kislak paintings, a seventeenth-century series depicting the conquest of Mexico, currently held at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. The editors intend to use the paintings highly conservative and pro-Spanish version of history as a foil to the new interpretations of the Conquest (p. 7). They combine art history, history, linguistic anthropology, literature and archaeology to consider how the Spanish conquest of Mexico has and should be remembered. The rst two sections of the book address competing stories of the conquest, and sometimes overlap. In both, famous characters loom large. Remembering the Legends focuses explicitly on Moteuczoma, Cortes and Malintzin/Malinche. Although glossed with considerable nuance, the stock characterisations of a weak and timorous Moteuczoma, a gallant Cortes, and an indispensable but mysterious Malintzin remain largely intact. In a colonial Nahua Epiphany drama, Louise Burkhart sees Herod standing in for an angry, cruel, and paranoid Moteuczoma, but also for an ill-behaved, Spanish-speaking Cortes. The Magi, meanwhile, are worthy Nahua ancestors who act courteously and accept Christianity on their own terms. Susan Gillespie, focusing on the omens that are said to have foretold Tenochtitlans fall, contends that blaming Moteuczoma did not simply rationalise a defeat. More profoundly, the omens story integrated a horric, transformative event into indigenous understandings of divine rulership. Her demonstration of the Mesoamerican principles at play in stories of bodily attacks on Moteuczoma provides a refreshingly new way of looking at this most persistent and well-known conquest story. For Viviana Daz Balsera, Hernan Cortess Second and Third Letters to Charles V encompass the two extremes of European imaginings of the conquest, as unbe lievable triumph and hellish despair. Daz Balseras appreciation of Cortess rhe torical triumph adds a new layer to his already larger-than-life historical personality. He becomes not only the dauntless conqueror of Tenochtitlan, but a creator of the founding texts of a Latin American imaginary . Constance Cortez compares the Kislak series passive, background portrayal of Malintzin/Malinche with contemporary indigenous portrayals, in which Malintzin is an active agent of change. She sees a new imaginary reected in the Kislak paintings, as power passed from indigenous to Spanish colonial elites by the mid-seventeenth century. The second section of the book, The Transformation of History, considers conquest narratives more generally. Matthew Restall and Michael Schreer both see in the Kislak series the consolidation of an imperial ideology of conquest (and not, Schreer argues, a nascent criollismo). Restall links the paintings mythistory to the 1684 publication of Antonio de Sols y Rivadeneiras Historia de la conquista de Mexico, whose episodic chronology the series closely follows. Cortes represents the triumph of Catholic, Spanish civilisation. His heroic feats are heralded, while episodes that reect poorly on the Spanish are deemphasised or omitted. Schreer compares the Kislak paintings to three contemporary pieces in which New World space appears naturalised and chaotic, but ultimately subordinated and rebuilt by the orderly hand

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of Spain. Such images rebued criticisms of Spanish colonialism and soothed an anxious nobility concerned about the monarchy. Diana Magaloni-Kerpel revisits the Spanish-Nahua story of the eight omens, and her essay complements Gillespies. Rather than focusing on Moteuczoma, Magaloni-Kerpel argues that the omens more generally chart the transformation of an old world consumed by re into a new one born of water : that of the Spaniards and the Christians. She very usefully integrates the Florentine Codex illustrations with a Codex Fejervary calendar round to make the point. She also points out Christian inuences evident in the omens illustrations a reminder of the religious transformations embedded in these early, indigenousauthored stories of invasion. I especially appreciated Brienens and Jacksons inclusion of the third section of the book, Eects of Invasion . It recalls the most devastating transformation of the period : the death of millions of Mesoamericans in the rst century after contact. Martha Few analyses autopsy reports of Indian bodies consumed by cocoliztli in Mexico City in the 1570s. Although all social groups were aected by the disease, only Indian bodies were examined. The resulting ethnicised discourse described Indians as particularly susceptible to disease, and denigrated local cures in favour of colonial medicine. Few avoids a Foucauldian interpretation, however, highlighting instead the limits of the power of colonial medicine . Chavez Balderas posits a disjuncture between the rapid adoption of certain Christianised funerary rituals hastened by the extreme contexts of war and epidemic disease and the ideological transformation these new practices implied. This is a large topic, perhaps too large to be covered satisfactorily in a single essay. It is highly suggestive of new research directions for the colonial period, however, and enriched by archaeologist Chavez Balderass past work on ritual sacrice and burial in the Templo Mayor of Tenochtitlan. The essay of Brienen and Jackson details straightforwardly and systematically the provenance of the Kislak series, and the content of each of its frames. Coming at the end of the volume, this summary treatment of the paintings seems almost an afterthought. But perhaps this was the editors intention. Introducing the Kislak series last spotlights the essays that preceded it. By then, the assertion that the series is highly biased in favour of the Spanish comes as no surprise. Indeed, the point has been made before, often by the same authors presented in this volume. Here, they collectively continue paving the way for ever richer dialogues across disciplines about the interpretive possibilities still latent in the themes of conquest and colonization. Brienen and Jackson seem to think the point about Spanish bias bears repeating, but not belabouring. I agree. Marquette University
LAURA MATTHEW

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004781

Javier Villa-Flores, Dangerous Speech : A Social History of Blasphemy in Colonial Mexico (Tucson, AZ : University of Arizona Press, 2006), pp. xii+242, $50.00, $24.95 pb. From 1522 to 1700 the Mexican Inquisition heard 735 cases of blasphemy and related oences. Before the creation of this tribunal in 1571, the denunciations were handled by ecclesiastical authorities or designated members of the Mendicant Orders acting as judges. In Dangerous Speech Javier Villa Flores examines a representative

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sample of these cases to oer a glimpse of the lives that came under the scrutiny of the Inquisition as a result of denunciations for this particular crime of the tongue. The book is about the social life of a serious religious oence and how individuals across races, gender and class put it into use . The cases tried by the Mexican Inquisition conrmed that blasphemy was a mans aair, a feature acknowledged in religious literature of the time. Men were prone to blaspheme and, according to the author, they found in blasphemous speech a way to assert their masculinity either in their households or in the company of other men be it at work or at gambling houses. In this sense, to blaspheme was an act of self-presentation, or as the author prefers, self-fashioning or gender performance . As Villa-Flores also shows in the last chapter, slave men (and a few slave women) engaged in blasphemy as a way to bring to the attention of authorities the brutal treatment they were receiving at the hands of their masters with the not always fullled hope of being reassigned. The gallery of Mexican men and foreigners who faced charges for blasphemy comprised sailors, gamblers, public ocials and soldiers; in many cases as the author reminds us, the negative perception of their trade or favourite pastime by secular and religious authorities rendered them automatically suspicious. But asserting masculinity came with a price tag ; these men, as the author poses, were risk-takers and not only because of the very nature of their professions or compulsive habits. A good number of cases analysed involved men denounced by their own wives for blaspheming at home. As it turns out, the testimonies gathered during these particular trials revealed histories of domestic violence and abuse. Oddly, the author quickly dismisses as fabrications the allegations of abuse brought by the wives without asking why women would resort to denouncing their husbands. One possible reason could be that they did so as a means to bring domestic abuse into the open. Whatever the ultimate reason may be, these women were also risk-takers. What were the stakes for women denouncing their husbands? What were the alternatives available to them ? The testimonies seem to indicate that the assertion of masculinity and domestic authority on the part of the husbands found expression in a direct attack on their wives religious devotion (and network outside the household ?), an aspect entirely absent from the authors interpretation. Which brings me to a signicant shortcoming of this otherwise valuable book rich in archival sources yet somewhat hurried when it comes to analysis. As presented by the author, individuals in colonial Mexico did not blaspheme as much as they did previously. The basis for such a distinction has become widely accepted and is of a piece with the notion of agency that informs similar works that focus on the responses of individuals (denouncers to the Inquisition included) and social groups to the disciplinary forces of church or state. Such a distinction should not pass unexamined and not only because an unqualied statement of the kind X used blasphemy (quite common in the book) comes dangerously close to a petitio principii. Villa-Flores examines the social uses of blasphemy almost without reference to the religious domain to which blasphemy belonged and within which it was intelligible. For instance, when dealing with the cases of the wives who denounced their husbands, the author has detached blasphemy from its particular religious milieu, losing sight of the social dimension of religion in the process. A more careful analysis may have led the author to consider whether female Catholic devotion could have had under certain circumstances a potentially destabilising eect on the everyday dynamics of colonial households.

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A similar problem surfaces in the nal chapter on slave blasphemers in which we learn very little about the kind of Catholicism that took shape among groups of enslaved individuals from dierent backgrounds and experiences. Irrespective of their gender, class or race, the majority of the blasphemers that populate the pages of Dangerous Speech look remarkably alike in their religious make-up. Because of a somewhat programmatic approach to the sources, religion stands as a rigid set of precepts seemingly unaltered through time against the ever-changing world of the social. This becomes apparent in Villa-Flores treatment of church teachings on blasphemy through history. Yet, as O. Christin pointed out sometime ago, the conceptualisation of the so-called sins of the tongue that emerged during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries diered in signicant ways from sixteenth-century discussions on blaspheme. Because of the fascinating archival material that the author has gathered, Dangerous Speech has much to oer to those interested in the study of colonial social history. Yet it also raises a question about whether it is possible to write a social history of a religious notion without engaging into a serious inquiry about Catholicism as lived and practiced in Mexican colonial society. The University of Connecticut at Storrs
O S V A L D O F. P A R D O

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004793

Gabriel B. Paquette, Enlightenment, Governance and Reform in Spain and its Empire, 17591808 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. xi+244, 50.00, hb. This intricate monograph aims to analyse the political ideas animating the government reformers of Spain and its Atlantic empire in the second half of the eighteenth century (p. 1). In this period, it has been argued conventionally by generations of scholars, the ministers of Charles III (17591788) and, to a lesser extent Charles IV, his successor until his abdication in 1808 in favour of Ferdinand VII, sought to implement a multi-faceted programme of modernisation of imperial structures inspired by regalist governance rather than mere enlightened absolutism (p. 6) designed to restore Spain to the rank of a rst-rate power. Evidently in the long run the quest was in vain, as would be demonstrated by the gradual loss of momentum in the application of the reform programme even prior to 1796, when Spains entry as an ally of revolutionary France against Britain in what turned out to be a long cycle of international conicts led inexorably to, rst, the collapse of the theoretical peninsular monopoly of trade between Europe and Spanish America, and in due course to the collapse of the Bourbon monarchy itself in 1808, with the installation of a brother of Napoleon Bonaparte as king Joseph I of Spain. Recent contributions to the historiography of the Bourbon reforms in the Hispanic world have concentrated upon a series of loosely connected themes. These include, rst, discussion of the extent to which their inspiration derived from not only the monarchys reaction to the humiliation suered at the hands of Britain during the Seven Years War but also an imperial programme devised during the reign of Philip V by Jose de Patino, his Secretary of State for the Indies, Navy and Treasury in the period 17261736. This sought to strengthen trade between Spain and America through the creation of a strong navy, and scal incentives for peninsular exporters. Secondly, why and when did they lose momentum : with the demise of Charles IIIs Minister of the Indies, Jose de Galvez, in 1787 and that of the king

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himself in the following year, or several years later, as a reaction in Madrid to both continued resistance to their implementation by conservative viceroys and other senior ocials in America and fears of the transmission of radical ideas from revolutionary France ? Finally, to what extent did the impact of the Bourbon reforms in America pave the way for the Revolutions for Independence of the second decade of the nineteenth century ? The overriding issue has been intense debate about the extent to which the programme as a whole should be seen as cautious, incomplete and tardy rather than well-planned and comprehensive. The author reverts to an interpretation in vogue until the late-1970s, but increasingly challenged since then by both European and American scholars, by reviving the earlier consensus which stressed the programmes cohesion and coherence and overlooked procrastination in its application. The volume has four main chapters, each tightly written and supported by extensive notes. The rst underscores the importance of geopolitical rivalries, especially between Spain and Britain, in shaping Bourbon imperial policies. It also explains the ambivalent nature of Spanish modernisers towards this imperial rival, admired for its example of how to grow rich from colonial trade, a strong navy and agricultural development, but disliked for its deep-rooted disdain towards backward, Catholic Spain and its erosion of the latters monopoly of trade with America through both contraband and the legal supply of manufactures to Cadiz merchant houses for re-export. Chapter two grapples with the inherent contradictions embraced in the quest of Spains imperial policy-makers to promote public happiness by strengthening state power at the expense of not only the Church but also other privileged groups and corporations perceived to be hampering commercial expansion and agricultural modernisation. Chapter three focuses more explicitly upon attitudes and reactions to the reform programme in Spanish America, with particular reference to Cuba, Florida and Louisiana, dened as representatives of the imperial periphery (p. 94). The deliberate exclusion from this analysis of the mainland viceroyalties, notably New Spain and Peru, has some justication, but it involves overlooking armed resistance to the intensication of absolutism particularly as manifested in tighter scal impositions in the Andean region during the period studied. Chapter four recapitulates the conclusions of the authors 2007 article in this Journal (vol. 39, pp. 263298) by analysing the extent to which the colonial elites represented in the new consulados established in the 1790s sought, with considerable success, in collaboration with sympathetic local administrators to inuence crown policies in the commercial and economic spheres. It emphasises their role in securing the introduction of neutral trade in 1797, but, as a consequence of the concentration upon the periphery, does not explore the profound divisions within the older merchants guilds of Lima and Mexico about the desirability or otherwise of the clamour for genuine free trade. A very brief Conclusion restates the argument that the Bourbon reform programme for Spanish America had a logical, coherent foundation, despite the fact that it was applied with exibility because of the crowns desire to preserve relatively harmonious relations with local elites (p. 153). The abundant archival sources employed for this study are primarily in Spanish repositories, but valuable material from Buenos Aires, Havana and Santiago de Chile has also been exploited, particularly for chapter three. The extensive bibliography of printed sources, although concerned primarily with Spain and Spanish America, has useful subsections on art history, enlightened absolutism, regalism, British imperial history, the Enlightenment and Naples (where, of course, Charles III reigned from

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1724 until inheriting the Spanish crown in 1759). Overall this is a work of remarkable erudition, which is recommended to all students of the Bourbon reforms in Spain and Spanish America, even though some of them, like this reviewer, might not be inclined to fully accept its central thesis that the programmes positive features outweighed its aws. University of Liverpool
JOHN FISHER

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X0800480X

David T. Garrett, Shadows of Empire: The Indian Nobility of Cusco, 17501825 (Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press, 2005), pp. xviii+300, 45.00 ; $75.00, hb. The central focus of this valuable book is the analysis of the social, economic and, to a lesser degree, political roles in late-colonial Peru of the Indian elite of the bishopric of Cusco (from 1784 the intendancies of Cusco and Puno) in the period from the mid-eighteenth century until the foundation in 18241825 of the independent republic of Peru. Arguing persuasively that the structures in place at the beginning of this period were essentially those established by Viceroy Francisco de Toledo in the 1570s, Professor Garrett devotes the rst two of the volumes seven chapters to an examination of the reasons for and the nature of the Spanish crowns need to incorporate the indigenous nobility a term that embraces both the descendants of the Inca nobility of Cusco itself and the powerful hereditary caciques of the Lake Titicaca basin into the administrative structures of the viceroyalty as intermediaries between the relatively small population of Spanish settlers and the tens of thousands of Indians who survived the demographic collapse of the rst century of colonialism. By the late-eighteenth century the non-Spanish population, overwhelmingly Indian , of the diocese of Cusco, which had numbered an estimated one million prior to the Conquest, stood at about 250,000, a gure almost double the size of that of the late-seventeenth century. The city of Cusco, which had a Spanish population of some 17,000 according to the 1795 census, stood as a symbol of white authority and power in the region, as to a much lesser extent did that of Puno. However, the descendants of the Inca nobility, and to a lesser extent the hereditary caciques of the territories beyond the partidos of Cusco and Puno themselves, capable of speaking and writing in Spanish when necessary, were adept at operating as powerful actors within this power structure. This they achieved by using the courts to defend their privileges or, at a dierent level, by collaborating in the functioning of an increasingly exploitative scal regime. Inevitably, their incorporation undermined and contradicted the Hapsburg aim of establishing separate republics of Spaniards and Indians, which in any case was largely theoretical because of the parallel policy of granting the former access to the labour and other services of Perus indigenous population. Within this context there was ample scope for the indigenous elite, headed symbolically by the 24 noble electors of Cusco (who annually selected the alferez real who carried the banner of Santiago in the Corpus Christi procession) to insist upon their indigenous legitimacy whilst also pursuing social and political strategies (for example, entry of their sons into the priesthood and marriages with Spaniards) that made conventional ethnic categories increasingly fuzzy round the edges. The Rebellion of Tupac Amaru that broke out in 1780, almost at the same time as parallel movements of protest in Upper Peru, represented a serious challenge to not

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only the colonial state but also the privileged position within it of this indigenous elite. Its almost unanimous response, as chapter six shows, was to proclaim allegiance to the Spanish crown and participate actively in the brutal repression of the rural insurgency that continued until 1783, notwithstanding the execution of Tupac Amaru and his immediate family in 1781. However, to the surprise and dismay of the collaborators, the inexible peninsular bureaucrats who dominated local administration in the aftermath of the rebellion, preoccupied with both restoring order and increasing the yield of tribute, pursued a conscious policy of marginalising the potentially subversive Indian elite. Increasingly, caciques found themselves liable to be registered as tributaries, and local communities witnessed the tendency for the audiencia of Cusco to conrm the appointment to cacicazgos of well-connected creoles, essentially as tax collectors rather than as the defenders of indigenous rights. Conversely, the ethnic identities incorporated in the structures of the Hapsburg period were further blurred by the attempts of local creoles to appropriate an imagined Inca identity and legitimacy as part of their quest for regional autonomy from Lima, and even, as the so-called Rebellion of Pumacahua of 18141815 demonstrated, the creation of an independent Peru with Cusco as its capital. This is a rich, complex book, which throws much new light upon the history of the indigenous elite of southern Peru, particularly after 1780. It concludes with the conventional observation that the maladroit attempts of Simon Bolvar to improve the lot of the Indians by abolishing not only tribute but also cacicazgos and the inalienability of community lands brought in their train the marginalisation and pauperisation of the indigenous population of southern Peru in the post-1824, creole-dominated republic. One suspects that the next step for revisionism will be to question if this was really what happened, particularly in the Titicaca basin. University of Liverpool
JOHN FISHER

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004811

Marixa Lasso, Myths of Harmony: Race and Republicanism during the Age of Revolution, Colombia 17951831 (Pittsburgh, PA : University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007), pp. viii+203, $60.00 hb, $24.95 pb. Myths of Harmony by Marixa Lasso is a thought-provoking and timely new study of racial discourse in the formation of the Colombian nation state during the long independence period. The central argument of the book is that during the independence period a myth of racial harmony was developed in Colombia which has endured until recent times. Lasso holds that Colombian patriots during independence declared legal racial equality and constructed a powerful nationalist ideology that proclaimed the fraternity of Colombians of all colours. As a consequence, both racial hierarchies and conicts based on race were deemed unpatriotic (p. 9). To claim that such a myth exists in Colombia and in Latin America more generally, is of course not new. The novelty of Lassos study is rather the ways in which she explores the construction of the myth from various perspectives, how it surfaces in dierent texts and situations, and in particular how the myth structured political space and limited the aspirations of pardos or Afro-Colombians (the terms preferred by Lasso) in the early republic. This short book contains seven dense chapters. They are presented in a loose chronological order and treat the subject from varying perspectives and within

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dierent geographic contexts, although the city of Cartagena gures prominently. While the rst, titled The Wars of Independence , reads like a conventional introduction, the second Racial Tensions in Late Colonial Society focuses on the province of Cartagena and includes brief discussions of the demographic importance of pardos in colonial society, the heated debates between creole elites and bourbon reformers over the gracias al sacar and the possible repercussions in Cartagena of the rumours about racial disturbances elsewhere in the Caribbean. This is the least interesting part of the book, partly because social and political aspects of late colonial society in the Colombian Caribbean have recently been studied in more detail by other scholars and partly because Lasso claims that experiences of racial domination were essentially similar across the Americas. The contestable implication of this view is that we should pay less attention to the colonial origins of racial identities, and instead focus on how the dierent national and republican myths of racial relations were constructed on the base of allegedly similar colonial and racist experiences. Chapter three focuses on the discussions of race and citizenship in Cadiz between 1810 and 1812, the responses to the Cadiz constitution in New Granada, and the background development of a republican ideology of racial harmony. The perspective in this chapter is top-down. Lasso identies elite positions on race and citizenship as these developed among leading deputies at the Cortes, in newspapers and other contemporary published media, in the decrees of the Cartagena and Caracas juntas, and how they were reected in speeches of leading patriots. She eciently describes how legal racial equality became a cornerstone of patriot rhetoric and served as a fundamental basis for framing Spanish despotism and colonialism in opposition to American independence and equality. Wisely, she leaves open the question of whether the new rhetoric reected primarily strategic interests or more humanitarian and democratic ideals. The fourth chapter The First Republic and the Pardos is a detailed analysis of the independent republic of Cartagena (18111816), the political conicts that permeated its short existence and their racial underpinnings. Complementing and in part challenging recent narratives by Alfonso Munera and Aline Helg on the same subject, Lasso has the pardos playing a crucial role as supporters of the radical faction of Gabriel Gutierrez de Pineres in opposition to the aristocratas led by Jose Mara Garca de Toledo. Again, Lassos primary interest is the dynamics of political language; more precisely how pineristas used against the local aristocracy the very same principled arguments on equality, merit and virtue that the American deputies used against peninsulares and royalists. Pineristas accused the toledistas of being aristocratic, harbouring secret pro-Spanish sentiments and acting in ways contrary to the principles of independence and republicanism. The toledistas in turn, responded by charging the pineristas with instigating disorders that could lead to another Haiti. The real or imagined fear of race war, according to Lasso, henceforth became a constant element in the Colombian myth of racial harmony and was used against those who criticised the democratic shortcomings of the republic. Chapters six and seven, Life-Stories of Afro-Colombian Patriots and Race War, constitute the most interesting part of the book. They illustrate both the limits of racial equality in early republican Colombia and the extent to which race became a political taboo, making overt state racism impossible. Based primarily on court cases from the 1820s, chapter six discusses the fortunes of master gunpowder maker Buenaventura Perez, shoemaker Cornelio Ortiz, slave Tomasco, alcalde Valentn

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803

Arca, colonel Remigio Marquez and admiral Jose Padilla (all Afro-Colombians in Lassos view) and their varying degrees of success in challenging white domination through the justice system. It shows how the new republican language of racial equality both enabled pardos to seek justice, positions and rights that had previously been denied them and at the same time limited their possibilities of expressing their aspirations in terms of racial grievances. The slightly misnomer chapter Race War discusses the possible meanings of the rumours of race war that circulated during independence and the early republic but which never materialised. Instead of explaining the absence of outright racial rebellions, Lasso tries to show how the rumours of race war found in secret reports, closed senate hearings and private letters constituted a crucial aspect of the early republican political disputes and discourse on race, especially in the conict between the supporters of Bolvar and Santander. The nal outcome of the political struggles of the 1820s was that racial grievances became a taboo, not by further repressing pardos, but by upholding the notion of racial harmony (p. 150). Although readers familiar with Colombian historiography on the nineteenth century may object that Lasso simplies the complexity of early republican political conicts and reduces them to one-dimensional debates over racial issues, her study shows at least that the racial aspect cannot be ignored. Myths of Harmony is thus a valuable contribution and a novel interpretation, making it compulsory reading for any serious student of early nineteenth-century Colombia. University of Oslo
STEINAR STHER

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004823

Jaime E. Rodrguez O., La revolucion poltica durante la poca de la independencia: e El Reino de Quito, 18081822 (Quito : Universidad Andina Simon Bolvar ; Corporacion Editora Nacional; Biblioteca de Historia vol. 20, 2006), pp. 238, pb. It is a sobering thought, as 2010 inexorably draws nearer, that most of the major Spanish American countries are planning lavish celebrations to mark the bicentenaries of premature bids for independence which, with the arguable exception of the 25 de Mayo events in Buenos Aires, hindered rather than helped the creation of independent republics. The case of Ecuador is particularly poignant for the countrys national day commemorates the Quito revolution of 10 August 1809, the clear aim of which, as Jaime O. Rodrguez explains, was not to secure independence but, rather, to pledge delity to the captive Ferdinand VII. Although it is true that the decision of the citys cabildo abierto to establish a governing junta in the kings name was preceded by a period of tension between peninsular and creole factions within the urban elite, it was only the violent reaction to it of the hardline viceroy of Peru, Fernando de Abascal (18061816), already in control of the rival city of Guayaquil (the entire province had been transferred from the viceroyalty of New Granada to that of Peru in 1803) that created the myth that the quitenos were aiming to secure independence. The outcome was a brutal repression, which included the sacking of the city by black soldiers of the Royal Regiment of Lima, severe judicial sanctions and, in August 1810, the slaughter of many of the leaders of the 1809 movement in response to an attempt by the citizens to free prisoners. Throughout these tense twelve months, other towns and cities in the presidency of Quito Cuenca, Loja

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and particularly Guayaquil showed absolutely no inclination to come out in sup port of the quitenos. Following the intervention of the aged president of Quito, the Conde de Ruiz Castilla, in the aftermath of the massacre, it was agreed that the Peruvian troops would withdraw. The arrival in September of the commissioner of the Council of Regency, Carlos Montufar, further complicated the situation in Quito, however, as he agreed to establish a Junta Superior de Gobierno, answerable to the Council of Regency but autonomous from the viceregal authorities in both Santa Fe and Lima. The predictable outcome was the refusal of other provinces of the presidency, notably Cuenca, to recognise the authority of Quito, although a degree of stability was restored in the region in late-1812, as a new president, Toribio Montes, issued pardons and arranged elections for both city councils and deputies to the Cortes, as prescribed by the 1812 constitution of Cadiz. Most general histories of Spanish American Independence including Rodriguezs The Independence of Spanish America (CUP, 1998) allow subsequent events in the future Ecuador to virtually disappear from their radar until 9 October 1820, when the civic and military leaders of the port city of Guayaquil, weary of the burden of wartime taxation and unconvinced that the restoration earlier that year of the 1812 constitution would be permanent, declared for independence. On this occasion the viceroy of Peru, Joaqun de Pezuela (18161821), preoccupied with the landing of Jose de San Martns army south of Lima in the previous month, was powerless to intervene, and the combination of persuasion and the threat of force convinced other cities in the region Cuenca, Machaci, Latacunga and Riobamba to follow the lead of Guayaquil. However, the city of Quito itself remained staunchly royalist on this occasion, less for love of Spain than for fear of losing primacy in the region, and its forces retook Cuenca in December, thereby temporarily dividing the kingdom into a royalist sierra and an independent coastal region. The pragmatic solution to this situation of civil war was provided abruptly in 1822 by the Colombian armies of Simon Bolvar who was already committed since the meeting of the Congress of Cucuta in 1821 to the incorporation of the entire territory of the viceroyalty of New Granada into Gran Colombia following the victory of Jose Antonio de Sucre over the royalists at Pichincha on 24 May 1822. On 31 July, four days after the historic meeting between Bolvar and San Martn in Guayaquil, the citys authorities recognised reality by voting to join Colombia. Eight years later the conquered people , as Rodrguez describes them, of the former kingdom of Quito converted the region into a new nation, not with its historic name of Quito, but with the articial name that it had been given by its conquerors : Ecuador (p. 186). As might be expected of a native Ecuadorian who has been publishing on Spanish American independence for more than 30 years (his inuential The Emergence of Spanish America : Vicente Rocafuerte and Spanish Americanism, 18081832 (University of California Press) which appeared in 1975), Professor Rodrguez writes uently and with authority. The present volume builds upon his previous scholarship two of its ve substantive chapters (two and four) are revised versions of earlier articles but also embraces the fruits of original research, particularly in chapter three, Los indgenas y la nueva poltica . This analyses the repercussions in the kingdom of Quito of the articles in the 1812 constitution that declared the equality of all the inhabitants of America, other than those of African descent, with those of peninsular Spain, demonstrating how indigenous communities skilfully defended their interests, and succeeded, for example, in persuading President Montes to

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abolish denitively the tribute in 1814. Similarly, many invoked their status as Spanish citizens to refuse to continue providing personal service or undertake forced work. In conclusion, this is a stimulating monograph, a model of how the specic details of one regions transition from colonialism to independence need to be contextualised within a global context, without resort to exaggerated notions of national identity. One fears that the next few years will generate many works of inferior quality as part of the bicentennial celebrations. University of Liverpool
JOHN FISHER

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004835

Karl Bartolomeus Heller, translated by Terry Rugeley (ed.), Alone in Mexico: The Astonishing Travels of Karl Heller, 18451848 (Tuscaloosa, AL : University of Alabama Press, 2007), pp. xix+274, 32.50, hb. Alone in Mexico is a travel account by the Austrian botanist Karl Bartolomeus Heller, who visited Central America and the Caribbean between 1845 and 1848 to study the regions fauna and ora. Terry Rugeley oers the rst English translation of this work, originally published in Hellers native German and largely neglected by English speaking scholars. The text documents Hellers experiences in Mexico, as he roamed through the little known states of Yucatan, Tabasco and Chiapas. It also furnishes interesting observations on Mexican culture and politics during the crisis years of the Mexican-American War and the Caste War in the Yucatan. Hellers narrative forms part of a broader genre of travel literature popular in the nineteenth century. In the years following Spanish American independence, many northern European naturalists descended on Spains former colonies to examine their natural resources, and, in some cases, to sta nascent universities and museums. Most of these men, following in Alexander von Humboldts illustrious footsteps, consigned their experiences to print when they returned to Europe, producing exhilarating travel accounts to accompany their scientic works. These texts usually shared several key themes : they presented America as an unexplored continent brimming with untapped natural resources and potentially lucrative markets for consumer goods ; they proered comments on American customs and society ; and they enumerated the multiple dangers facing the intrepid explorer. Hellers account conforms to this general model, illuminating the numerous perils and discomforts that aicted the scientic traveller in Spanish America. The Austrian contends with vicious mosquitoes, choppy seas and hazardous roads. He succumbs to debilitating sickness. He endures many a night in substandard inns consuming questionable cuisine, and he repeatedly emphasises the dangers posed by bandits, from whom he has several lucky escapes. Such tribulations, which are pretty much the standard fare of nineteenth-century travel narratives, cast Heller in the familiar guise of self-sacricing savant, willing to risk his life in pursuit of scientic knowledge. Hellers account is also of interest to historians because he views Mexico at a critical juncture in its history and dispenses valuable information about Mexican culture and society. He chronicles the progress of the Mexican American war, as US troops advance inexorably on Mexico City. He witnesses the mounting racial

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tensions in Yucatan in the lead-up to the brutal caste war of 1847, and he dis approves, like many foreign visitors, of the prevalence of excessive alcohol consumption and gambling, observing that Mexicans of both sexes love idleness as much as the foreign merchant loves industry and activity ; and they are never happier than when they sit on a handsome steed or in a carriage, at the gaming table or the theatre, and are able to give free rein to their ostentation . An interest in PreColombian civilisations spurs Heller to visit the Maya ruins at Uxmal, where he professes to feel a solemn respect towards the vanished people who once constructed such grand and magnicent buildings , and he also inspects the selection of Aztec artefacts on display in the Museum of Mexico. He lists the items exhibited in the institution, admiring an anthropomorphic gure wrapped around with serpents, equipped with a necklace of human hearts, hands and skulls and marvels at a beautiful mask, fashioned and burnished out of obsidian with such perfection that one cannot recognise the slightest trace of a tool on it . As a naturalist, Heller is particularly keen to evaluate the state of the sciences in post colonial Mexico, though his appraisal is, in the main, less than encouraging. The Austrian laments that the botanical garden, founded by Vicente Cervantes in 1788 and once a very interesting spot is now so neglected that the visitor could sooner take the whole thing for a courtyard than for a botanical garden . The natural history collection in the museum is, in Hellers opinion, neither scientically arranged nor especially well preserved , a few fossils and the remains of a mammoth constituting the only notable items , whilst the School of Mines, which in former times included collections on physics, mechanics and mineralogy, is now worth seeing as little more than a monument of consummate architecture . Heller concludes that scientic study has declined in Mexico in the thirty years since independence, with the majority of scientic institutions nearing their collapse . The botanist does, however, temper this decidedly bleak picture with reference to a few enterprising Mexicans who, to his surprise, exhibit an interest in natural history. He reserves particular praise for two clergymen from Campeche, who possessed a small private collection of antiquities and objects of natural history, and a young hacendado from Tabasco who, to Hellers astonishment, brandished books about botany, the science of horticulture, history and so forth and cultivated an impressive variety of plants in his garden. Terry Rugelys highly readable translation brings Hellers account to an Englishspeaking audience for the rst time. It includes a short but useful introduction to the work in which Rugely supplies relevant biographical details about the botanist and the historical circumstances surrounding his sojourn in Mexico. It also includes comprehensive explanatory notes, where Rugely puts some of the Austrians more obscure references into context, corrects some of his misconceptions and indicates, where necessary, any changes between the translation and the original work. Like many travel narratives from this period, Hellers account is occasionally a little repetitive and his observations are sometimes tainted by the social and racial prejudices of his era particularly apparent in his attitude towards slavery. Nevertheless, the work contains a wealth of information and should be of interest to historians of science and exploration or politics and society in mid-nineteenthcentury Mexico. University of Warwick
HELEN COWIE

Reviews
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008). doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004847

807

Manuel Fernandez Canque, Arica, 1868 : Un tsunami y un terremoto (Arica, Chile : Universidad de Tarapaca Arica, 2007), pp. 332, pb. This striking book presents a detailed history of the August 13, 1868 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the city of Arica, then part of Peru but subsequently after the 18791883 War of the Pacic Chile. Professor Fernandez Canque has used his notable research skills to uncover a vast array of sources and to tell a fascinating story. The book, however, is much more than a monograph on the catastrophe. It is an encyclopaedic compilation on nineteenth-century Arica that presents dozens of rst-hand testimonies, a variety of archival sources, and a rich selection of illustrations. While readers who seek the history of the 1868 event will focus on the rst half of the book, others will turn to the sections on casos and testimonios for a wealth of information on this important Pacic port. At times the amount of information threatens to overwhelm the broader arguments but Fernandez Canque ultimately succeeds in crafting both a monograph and a source book that constitutes a valuable homage to the city and region he cherishes. At a little after 5 p.m., an earthquake calculated at 8.6 on the Richter scale struck Arica, demolishing buildings and sending people scurrying for protection. The ground continued to shake intermittently for days but the greatest danger came from the sea. A tsunami walloped the port half an hour after the earthquake, killing hundreds and destroying much of the city. The large waves sank many of the ships in the port some of which had taken refuge from Lima where yellow fever was killing thousands and rammed others onto shore. Many savvy locals saved themselves by heading inland or to higher areas immediately after the earthquake. Others did not recognise the danger or could not mobilise. For days, shocked survivors stumbled around the city confronted by terrible scenes of the dead and wounded, the eerie sounds of screams, sobs and tumbling buildings, and the increasingly wretched smell of decomposing corpses. In the midst of this gloom, people rejoiced when they found that loved ones had survived and learned of miraculous tales of survival. Locals and members of the sizeable foreign population (primarily from Bolivia, Chile, Great Britain and the United States) told distressing tales of the event and the chaos that followed. The earthquake and tsunami aected other areas in southern Peru, western Bolivia, and northern Chile, although to a much lesser extent than Arica. The nearby city of Tacna, three times as large as Arica, suered only minor damage. Fernandez Canque demonstrates that local peoples knowledge about earthquakes kept the death count relatively low, at about 280. He shows that the use of quincha or wattle and daub made buildings more exible. The search for higher ground after the earthquake also saved hundreds of lives. Arica 1868 captures nicely the feel of this active port city that exported goods not only from southern Peru but also from Chile and Bolivia. The earthquake snapped the telegraph link with Tacna and the news thus spread via the many ships that moved up and down the Pacic. His use of travel accounts, illustrations (almost 100 of them are reproduced), and economic information about the nitrate economy makes Arica 1868 a rich source for scholars on the nineteenth-century South American Pacic. The author includes export and import data ; dozens of pages of testimony (particularly by British sailors, many with a keen technical eye) ; and comprehensive information about the ships that were harbored there. Six Peruvian, two British, two French and three United States steamships were among the larger vessels struck by the tsunami. One hundred and

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thirty one members of the crew on the Peruvian corvette America perished. Many smaller boats also served this relatively shallow harbor yet the sources rarely mention them. Tax records did not register their activities and the more humble sailors did not write travel accounts as several of the British and American captains did. Fernandez Canque assumes that hundreds of these sailors were lost at sea. One issue that the author does not develop is the fact that Arica was part of Peru at this time but 15 years later passed into Chilean control. While his material shows that Arica was poorly served by distant Lima and that it housed a vibrant international community factors that might have played a role in the geopolitics of the war and its aftermath it would have been interesting to take into consideration the relationship between these two events (what Peruvian nationalists would deem back-to-back catastrophes) for Arica and this border region. Did the tsunami weaken the presence of the Peruvian government and create a power vacuum ? The author is diplomatic on this point (although some readers might question his map on page 95 that plots the 1868 damage yet uses the post-War national borders, placing Arica in Chile) and depicts heroics and suering by Peruvians, Chileans and others. The book was clearly a labour of love. He acknowledges the signicance of the time he spent in the Chilean north as a young boy and the legacy of his mothers Aymara heritage. Perhaps the years he spent in the British Library poring over obscure sources about this catastrophe can be understood in light of the sudden change and hardships he faced as an exile after the Pinochet coup in 1973. Did his examination of the unexpected events that so radically transformed Arica and the lives of its inhabitants echo the wistful ruminations of Chilean and other refugees about how events could turn so badly so quickly ? This could be an incorrect and even unfortunate over determination of his motivations but there is no doubt that Manuel Fernandez Canque has produced a splendid book that takes full advantage of his acumen and persistence for research and his deep aection for Arica. Readers will benet greatly. University of California, Davis
C H A R L E S F. W A L K E R

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004859

William E. Skuban, Lines in the Sand : Nationalism and Identity on the PeruvianChilean Frontier (Albuquerque, NM : University of New Mexico Press, 2007), pp. xxvii+314, $24.95 ; 17.50, pb. Is the notion of nationhood built into our cultural identity ? Is it received or rather created by historical circumstance and deliberately crafted by action and design ? Nations, the author responds, possess a constructed nature; they are invented. The aftermath of the War of the Pacic (187983) saw Chile as a victor over Peru and Bolivia and possessor of vast territories formerly belonging to its foes. The peace accord of 1883 left the Peruvian territories of Tacna and Arica to be held by Chile for ten years when a plebiscite was to determine whether they would remain Peruvian or whether they would rather belong to Chile. In fact, the plebiscite never took place and the famous Question of the Pacic was solved by a bilateral treaty in 1929, leaving Arica to Chile and handing over Tacna to Peru. The rich array of social interactions in the period between the end of the war and the signing of this treaty forms the central argument for Skubans study of nationalism and identity on the Peruvian-Chilean frontier. It is an intricate argument and the author does not avoid

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809

its complications and lucidly delves into the various social conicts resulting from the Chilean occupation. There was not only the Chilean/Peruvian dichotomy but also the domestic and conictive interaction between the Arica/Tacna region and the national central powers in each of the two countries. Both the race for Lima to preserve loyalty to a Peruvian historical identity and for Chile to chilenise the new territories clashed with the peculiar distinctiveness of a region inimical to the designs of a central Peruvian authority and simultaneously unwilling to fall prey to Chilean persuasion. In addition to the region/central power dichotomy there was also the deep social cleavage within the disputed region with the popular sectors and the indigenous populations confronting the uncertainties of an outcome that whatever its course- would be harmful to their welfare. It is precisely this intricate nature of social conict in the Arica/Tacna region that poses a formidable challenge to historians and nds a cogent response in the analysis presented by the author. Both the theoretical framework and the vast historical context for the book are succinctly set out in the introduction and in chapter one. The second chapter details the various tactics used by Chile to impose Chileanisation by counting, monitoring and displacing people or by attempting to neutralise the main public expressions of Peruvian identity, namely church, schools and the press. The next chapter gets into the vicissitudes of the frustrated plebiscite during 192526, a momentous period when nationalistic passions prevented its peaceful and normal completion. Chapter four looks into the response of the Peruvian elites to the challenge of cultural preservation, providing a splendid account of the role played by women in the safeguarding and enrichment of a Peruvian identity. Chapter ve is devoted to the contradictory behaviour of popular sectors entangled in a confused mixture of class solidarity and nationalistic fanaticism reaching a violent stage through the notorious ligas patrioticas. The last chapter is devoted to the intricate matter of the Indian question within the context of the Arica and Tacna dispute. Murras model of pisos ecologicos entailed the existence of a large number of small human settlements spread over a vast Andean territory which, to a large extent, still subsists today. The Tarata and Ticaco incidents discussed in this chapter provide a good indication of Aymara national feelings but it is not sucient, as we still ignore the nature of national allegiances in the other numerous Indian communities, particularly those in the Andean hinterland of Arica (Belen, Putre, Socoroma, etc.). One general aspect that remains unknown is the economic infrastructure of the period since we are only fragmentarily informed about the way in which Tacna and Arica survived during 18801929 and no reference is made to the pre-existing complex triangular articulation between Bolivian trade, Tacnas import/export houses and the Arica sea outlet. Whatever happened to foreign merchant houses in Tacna ? Were they just bemused spectators or actors in the drama ? The houses were mainly British and some, like Frederick Huth, used to play a fundamental role in this entrepot trade of Tacna and Arica. This is one of the various challenges calling for further fruitful research projects and, no doubt, a Spanish version of this book would produce healthy incentives for local Peruvian and Chilean researchers. There were already a good number of studies dealing almost solely with the diplomatic implications of the Tacna/Arica question. This study gets well into a host of deep seated social contradictions exacerbated by post war uncertainties and is well guided theoretically by Gramscis notion of subaltern social groups. Habermas and Anderson provide additional frameworks of reference and the analysis is enriched with thorough referencing to the state of art debate on nationalism and frontier in

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Latin America. Additional value is added by resorting to balanced archival sources in Chile and Peru and, most importantly, using hitherto untapped sources from the very local area of the conict which are handled with the healthy detachment of an impartial foreign observer, with eyes not tinged with chauvinistic animosity. If anything, the book is thin in references to dissent amongst Chilean intellectuals. Vicente Dagnino, the Chilean surgeon-historian who chose to disobey authorities restrictions by serving the Peruvian poor and bravely ghting the outbreak of bubonic plague in Tacna, is mentioned only in the bibliography. Carlos Vicun Fuentes a and his criticism of Chilean ocial policy on Tacna and Arica merited more than the single footnote allocated to him. His dismissal from the Instituto Pedagogico and Instituto Nacional because of his anti-patriotism elicited the support of the Teachers Society and the Federation of Students who rallied in the streets of Santiago. In sum, Chile was determined to stay in Tacna and Arica and convert pre-existing Peruvian loyalties into a newly acquired Chilean nationality simply because, as Luis Ortega has posited in a recent book, the newly acquired territories represented a denitive solution to the structural crisis of the 1870s. At the onset of the Pacic War, in July 1879, the Chilean envoy Alberto Blest Gana in Paris wrote to his friend Anbal, the president of Chile : [_ in this war] not a single means should be avoided to achieve the end we are aiming for : not only victory but the salvation of our country . Presented with the choice of either winning over the hearts and minds of the local population or imposing a new allegiance sometimes by coercion, as occupying powers usually do, Chile tended to opt for the latter. Peruvian resistance, crushed by the long War of the Pacic, reinvented itself in admirable cultural expressions in which women played a fundamental part. This is one of the nest elements addressed by Skuban. The lines on the sand were nally xed but the story has not yet nished : as this book hits the market, Chile and Peru are again at loggerheads disputing the way in which those lines should be projected into the territorial waters. One wonders how far in the future lies the end to these deep seated intermittent animosities and when those lines in the sand and in the sea shall be gone with the wind of Latin American integration. INTE, Universidad Arturo Prat, Iquique, Chile
MANUEL FERNANDEZ-CANQUE

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004860

Sandra Kuntz Ficker, El comercio exterior de Mexico en la era del capitalismo liberal, 18701929 (Mexico, D.F. : El Colegio de Mexico, Centro de Estudios Historicos, 2007), pp. 531, pb. In this work on Mexicos foreign trade, Sandra Kuntz Ficker addresses the role of imports in the process of [Mexicos] economic modernisation and the contribution of exports to the development of [its] national economy from 1870 to 1929 (p. 23). To this end the author sets ve questions : Was there persistent, long term deterioration in terms of exchange for Mexican exports ? Was trade policy invariably protectionist, or did it tend to liberalise ? Was [government policy] motivated primarily by scal necessity or pursued in a manner consistent with developmental objectives ? Did imports go mainly to meet the demand of a select group of consumers of luxuries or contribute to the process of industrialisation ? And [nally] were the benets of exports, as is often thought, isolated from the rest of the

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811

economy, essentially harmful to [Mexican economic] development, or [were they] real engines of growth for regions and states which each found their unique way out of economic backwardness (p. 23) ? While her prose tends to be of the yes, but variety, she answers in the armative to the latter half of these questions. Foreign trade did, in fact, serve to modernise Mexico. Further, she concludes that for all its disruption and destruction, The Revolution did not denitively overturn the economic development achieved in the Porrato, nor for all its political upheaval and nationalisations, did The Revolution end Mexicos dependence on foreign capital in strategic sectors (p. 22). In fact in some respects it worsened foreign dependence by diminishing the importance of European trading partners and creating a closer economic and commercial interdependence with the United States (p. 184). Kuntz Fickers book, like Gaul, is divided into three parts: patterns of trade, imports and the national economy, and exports and their economic contributions. She begins by getting the numbers right , reconstructing foreign trade statistics and correcting aws in ocial sources and interpretations thereof in 47 tables and 56 graphs (p. 33). Her reconstruction is complicated, however, by the changing relative value of the various monies, coin and gold and silver bullion. Her solution is to treat silver as a commodity until coined, accepting it then as money at face value whose worth she normalises in relation to gold standard currencies in two appendices (pp. 46596). She then adjusts her calculations to account for persistent problems in the ocial trade gures resulting from their underestimation of imports due to smuggling and of exports , their imposition of qualifying criteria that separated [out] precious metals, and from the overvaluation of oil sales during the 1920s (p.180). Her challenge to conventional wisdom notwithstanding, her nal conclusion diers little, if at all, from that convention : i.e. that Porrian Mexico made the transition from a closed and very poorly integrated traditional economy into the international market and that trade was a central component in that transition (p. 180). Kuntz Ficker then analyses the impact of tari rates and changes thereto to determine whether the regimes motivation and intent _ arose primarily for protectionist or economic development purposes (p. 189). She concludes that it was the latter. She identies ve phases in Mexicos progress of economic modernisation as seen in changes in the tari structure. In 1872 Mexico took one step forward with its liberalisation of strict protectionism. In 1880 tari reform took two steps back with the need to reorganise the national debt and simultaneously underwrite a nascent rail system (pp. 196, 203). Yet high taris restored during this period, when Mexicos economy relied on traditional exports and a rehabilitated mining sector had the eect of promoting import substitution industrialisation thus laying the groundwork for the second round of tari reductions in 1890. From this point the composition of the basket of imports changed, and industry began to appear as the Porrian regime programmatically shaped its tari structure to favour imports benecial to modernisation projects which spurred the growth of domestic manufacture and import replacement (p. 313). This policy was temporarily thrown o balance by The Revolution and subsequent civil war when Mexico returned to high taris. But the continuities with the modernising goals of the late Porriato were strong and they were not abandoned. The real turn, says Kuntz Ficker, came with the Great Depression. Thus what is often portrayed as a circulos viciosos , in which only Porrian insiders (the friends of Diaz) beneted, just as often gave raise to a

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circulo virtuoso where development was pursued in a rational way given the restraints under which it operated (pp. 45556). While the Porrian state is often criticised for over emphasising exports in pursuit of modernity, Kuntz Ficker points out that this strategy was necessitated by the internal chaos and foreign intervention that caused Mexico to miss about two decades of expansion in the international market (p. 461). By promoting growth-oriented exports, Mexico reached the conditions for industrialisation: a relatively integrated market, a surplus available to invest in the establishment of an industrial plant, a commercial policy increasingly targeted purposes of development and increased buying power on the part of a growing sector of the population (p. 316). Kuntz Fickers book has many merits. She gathered a rich load of statistics and marshalled them in a thorough, often fresh analysis of the links between trade, taris and modernisation. But her work is not without its problems. Her statistical reconstruction neglects the millions of pesos exported to Asia not in payment for goods or in capital ight but as value added products, as a commodity. Her evaluation of what can be learned from a study of taris is inconsistent. Having based chapter four on unveiling assumptions about the political motives underlying tari structures, she contradictorily writes: [I]n sum, [tari rates] are an inadequate and uncertain indicator when it comes to studying the politics of trade (p. 315). Interestingly, given the well-documented eect of personalismo in the Porrian regime her analysis omits any serious consideration of its inuence on public policy. She is similarly dismissive (by virtual omission) of the inuence of foreigners on the economy. While she acknowledges in passing that substantial portion of this modernisation was the result of investment by extranjeros (read Americans) it is with a certain reluctance. She prefers to emphasise role of growing domestic capital formation in the success of the export-oriented activities as leading to import substitution industrialisation (p. 457). In truth, by 1901, ISI was well underway with over 166 manufacturers operating in Mexico City alone. But of these industries only one, the Zetinas shoe factory, was entirely Mexican owned. All others were foreign owned, although many had Mexican partners that were necessary to open doors in the highly politicised Mexican economy. The 1910 census listed only one-tenth of the citys population involved in any way in commerce or industry and most as political facilitators who greased the gears of the Porrian political machine. Thus I would venture that what Kuntz Ficker characterises as an era of liberal capitalism might better be seen as one of tributary capitalism. My criticisms notwithstanding, Kuntz Ficker has made a signicant contribution to New Institutional Economic history which, along with New Cultural History, oers a paradigm to challenge the long reign of the now moribund dependency theory. Murray State University
W I L L I A M S C H E L L, JR.

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004872

Stephanie Mitchell and Patience A. Schell (eds.), The Womens Revolution in Mexico, 19101953 (Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littleeld, 2007), pp. viii+233, $82.50, $29.95 pb. For a collection committed to recovering the diversity of womens roles in Mexicos Revolution, the essays in this volume cohere remarkably well. As witnessed in these chapters, common to womens sundry revolutionary experiences was their

Reviews

813

profound, though hardly uniform, politicisation. Women expressed this not just through their participation in formal politics, such as eorts to achieve surage or amend family law. Amid the exuberance of post revolutionary civic life in the 1920s and 1930s, activities that had been historically largely female or domestic concerns, such as welfare, social reform, education, temperance and housing, now earned the attention of the state. Women in turn used this new status to press for equality, social justice, or at the very least an improvement in womens condition. Notably, despite these varied objectives, the contributors to this volume show that womens means often were quite similar. For example, upper-class, conservative women seeking to defend the Catholic Church, liberal feminists ghting for universal equality, and working class communists striving to overcome the oppression of capitalism found common ground in their eorts to uplift prostitutes and modernise the poor. By reclaiming their complex history, the contributors not only recognise womens participation in Mexicos Revolution ; together, they simultaneously attempt to answer whether this participation resulted in a revolution for Mexicos women. Women in Mexico ultimately gained full rights as citizens in the 1940s and 1950s by employing a politics of dierence that emphasised their distinct feminine contributions to the public sphere. This is not surprising to scholars of comparative womens history. Yet, as Sarah Buck illustrates, what is noteworthy about Mexico is just how close women came to full citizenship in the 1930s, when revolutionary radicalism almost ushered women into the voting booths on a platform of universal equality. However, the conservative shift in the 1940s and 1950s soon eliminated this possibility, and moderate feminists found themselves in the vanguard of the surage movement. Their ultimate success in earning the vote was in large measure determined by their ability to move maternalist concerns into the public sphere and assure conservative leaders of womens moderate political aspirations. Yet even women who fully respected this dierence found their authority in the public sphere in dispute. For instance, just as women temperance workers learned to negotiate the male-dominated world of local politics, Stephanie Mitchell shows that their eorts were frustrated by the reluctance of often self-interested regional and national politicians to grant women state-backed authority over the social life and moral values of their communities. Moreover, as seen in Carmen Ramos Escandons well-conceived chapter, the articulation between womens political ideas, public practice and revolutionary expectations was not straightforward. According to Ramos Escandon, moderate feminist Sofa Villa de Buentello lobbied tirelessly for full legal equality for women based upon traditional liberal ideals, even though she did so in order to improve womens condition within marriage and the family. Womens public activities, whether in search of political equality or social improvement, were frequently portrayed as transgressive by political, religious or labour leaders manoeuvring for power in the tumultuous decades after the Revolution. Previous scholars generally reproduced this depiction, in the process failing to question the motives of these leaders or even the veracity of this transgression. By contrast, Patience Schell asserts that Mexicos Catholic women had long been active in public social reform eorts with the support of both the Church and their communities. Schell adds that it was only when this activity became politicised in the 1920s in defence of Church authority that it became a target of the revolutionary state. Nevertheless, the state was less interested in conning women to

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their homes than in conning them to passive, productive forms of public activity that supported its authority. In this, the state viewed women as both targets and carriers of revolutionary reform. In her tightly-argued chapter, Stephanie Smith shows how the state sent women into the countryside ostensibly to educate the rural poor, but also to mediate the projection of state authority at the local level. Womens mobilisation was quickly reversed however, when the state saw the capacity of revolutionary reform to change both the minds and habits of rural workers in ways that threatened production and elite authority. Soon conned to the traditional activity of teaching, these women educators found themselves marginalised from the Revolution. Likewise, Martha Eva Rocha demonstrates that even women who had participated in the violent phase of the Revolution as soldiers, spies, propagandists and suppliers struggled, usually in vain, to receive recognition and benets from a revolutionary state intent on expunging their participation in order to curry favour among moderates. As the revolutionary leaders reinscribed the Revolution as a patriarchal event, the outcome was the erasure of women from the Revolution in practice, in nationalist mythology, and even in the scholarly literature. But as Patience Schell arms in her incisive conclusion, the recent maturation of womens studies and the cultural turn in scholarship on post revolutionary Mexico have generated new spaces for locating womens participation in the Revolution. This is seen in Andrew Grant Woods contribution on working class rent strikers in 1920s Veracruz. Though their initial participation stemmed from existing community social networks that had been forged from womens eorts to relieve the deplorable conditions of urban tenements, women strikers soon were politicised by revolutionary promises and communist leadership. While the strikes failed to lower rents, they did compel the state to expand its reform eorts in order to forestall communist organising of the working class. The revolutionary states interest in welfare, education, housing and public health was intended in part to contain the inuence of conservatives and radicals over Mexicos poor and working classes. Yet it had the unanticipated result of providing women with openings to negotiate variants of revolutionary citizenship. Katherine Elaine Bliss shows Mexicos Citys syphilis hospital as a proving ground where Catholic and moderate feminists debated whether the uplift of prostitutes should be a private or public endeavour. Regardless of their perspective, Bliss expertly illustrates that all feminists were caught between a Church that emphasised morality and a state that insisted on maternity, and neither institution seemed ready to promise women full citizenship. Consequently, as Nichole Sanders demonstrates, by the 1940s, state social assistance promised not equality, but rather improvements in the home. Even as welfare programmes provided professional opportunities for educated women, the state conned their work to monitoring and modifying the behaviour of the nations poor in order to encourage the reproduction of future citizen-workers. This is not a book without problems. Poor rural women appear largely as objects of reform, or sometimes even just of the reformers gaze, though editor Patience Schell acknowledges this by recognising their participation in the Revolution as a promising site for future research. Moreover, one of the books nest features is its inclusion of a relevant primary source in each chapter. Yet the sources are neither mentioned by the editors nor contextualised by the contributors. Nevertheless, it remains highly suited for course adoption, and should be of interest to scholars of

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modern Mexican history as well. The inventive use of a rich array of primary sources by almost all of the authors distinguishes this collection as a solid empirical contribution to the study of the diversity of womens experiences in post revolutionary Mexico. The chapters reveal that women most often met seemingly insurmountable obstacles in their eorts to achieve social justice or citizenship. Yet this collection also shows that Mexicos patriarchal post revolutionary state was in part constituted by and through the very women it sought to subjugate. Therefore, though in isolation the gains that women made appeared insignicant, together they initiated a sea change in the gendered attitudes and practices that composed political life in twentieth century Mexico. University at Albany, SUNY
S U S A N M. G A U S S

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004884

Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Erik Ching and Rafael A. Lara-Martnez, Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador: The Insurrection of 1932, Roque Dalton, and the Politics of Historical Memory (Albuquerque, NM : University of New Mexico Press, 2007), pp. xviii+411, $29.95, pb. The negotiated end of El Salvadors twelve-year civil war in 1992 created a novel set of conditions for academic researchers interested in the countrys social and political history. A new generation of Salvadoran scholars could dedicate themselves to research in ways that was previously not possible, and access to people, places and archival material improved enormously for Salvadorans as well as foreign scholars. Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador is an important product of this research boom. This book addresses dominant interpretations of the dramatic and violent events of 1932. In January of that year, peasants in the western, coee-growing areas of the country mounted a rebellion that was quickly put down by the military, which then undertook the mass execution of peasants, killing ten thousand, or perhaps thirty thousand, in a matter of weeks. Known in El Salvador simply as la matanza, this is the massacre whose memory is at stake in this volume. The magnitude of la matanza, both as actual event and as cornerstone of nationalist narratives for both the Left and Right, can scarcely be overstated. Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador addresses itself to the conditions that allowed a particular narrative framing of the events to achieve such hegemony as to constitute a metanarrative in whose terms competing interpretations would be framed, while those memories and interpretations that did not t within the metanarrative would be silenced or marginalised. The lynchpin of this metanarrative is what the authors call communist causality , the notion that those who rebelled were motivated fundamentally by some vision of communism. The rst section of the book recounts the basic outlines of events and then, drawing on previously unavailable documents from the Comintern archive in Moscow, challenges the communist causality thesis. The evidence suggests that the Partido Comunista Salvadoreno and its sister organisation, the Socorro Rojo Internacional, had little success in their organising eorts in the western coee lands. Party leaders became aware of the plans for insurrection in the region late in 1931, and found themselves aligning with the rebellion even as they wrote desperately to their superiors about its dangerously premature character. Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador

816

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presents the rebellion of 1932 as the product of local resentments and local organising rather than widespread commitment to communism. Once the communist causality thesis is undermined, the question becomes how this explanation achieved such widespread acceptance. To answer this, the authors turn to Roque Daltons 1972 Miguel Marmol, an early example of testimonio literature that presents the life story of Marmol, a founder of the PCS, who narrated his account to Dalton in 1966. The authors claim that Miguel Marmol, published after four decades during which oral and written accounts circulated, was the single most important contribution to collective memory of the events of 1932 is questionable, although contemporary leftists have drawn heavily on Daltons text. The authors of Remembering a Massacre were granted access by the Dalton family to Daltons notebooks, and the discrepancies between the account in the notes and the published version is the basis for their analysis of what they call (on p. 153) narrative reconguration, whereby Roque Dalton reshaped Marmols story . The authors focus rst, on the presentation of Marmols testimony as a defence of the communist leaderships decision to rebel in 1932, and second, on the silencing of Marmols reections on the extent to which ethnic factors played a role in mo tivating the rebellion. Communist leaders decision to push ahead with the rebellion, even as their own analysis indicated that the time was not right for insurrection, was ercely criticised by many on the Salvadoran left and cited as the cause for the rebellions failure. Yet for Dalton, who was dedicated to a revolutionary project that would nd form in the armed conict of the 1980s, the arguments against action were quietist. In order to present 1932 as a positive example for those involved in the contemporary communist project and to support his sense that immediate militant action was necessary, Dalton attributed to Marmol a rm defence of the decision to rebel in 1932 that is not supported by the account in the notebooks or by statements Marmol made in other contexts. Dalton also eliminated Marmols re ferences to ethnicity, most notably by characterising the motivations of the indigenous leader Feliciano Ama as being grounded in a sense of class exploitation as opposed to racial-ethnic divisions. The sharp distinction Dalton drew between class and race, as axes of inequality and modes of experience, reected Marxist notions of the primacy of class in determining history as well as dominant ideologies of mestizaje, which erased dierence in the name of a nationalist universalism. Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador marshals its arguments clearly and grounds them in the evidence presented in Daltons notebooks and other sources, many of which are reproduced in an extensive appendix. The book is well-suited for undergraduates and lends itself to discussions of methodology and theory as well as questions of the politics of memory. While the basic argument that Daltons own political priorities, as well as the broader discursive regime within which he lived and wrote, shaped his interpretation of events is likely to seem uncontroversial to scholars of historical memory, the presentation of that process at work is fascinating and thorough. Those familiar with recent controversies around the uses of testimonio may question the interests at stake in Remembering a Massacre in El Salvador. Although the authors nod to their own location within memory groups, and to the Menchu controversy, they present the book as a neutral academic project. But the history of 1932 is inescapably political in El Salvador today, as ruling rightists deploy an intense anticommunism against all opponents, the left fractures internally, and indigenous activists struggle to make their voices heard. By sidestepping the political stakes and

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817

leaving the past in the past, the authors miss an opportunity to consider why, at this moment, this work matters. Michigan State University
B R A N D T G. P E T E R S O N

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004896

Marcos Cueto, Cold War, Deadly Fevers : Malaria Eradication in Mexico, 19551975 (Washington D.C. : Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), pp. xvi+264, $45.00, hb. In the past decade Marcos Cueto has emerged as one of the leading gures pushing forward the historiography of medicine of Latin America. This new book makes a substantial contribution. Whereas other gures like Anne-Emanuel Birn and Armando Solorzano Rojas have made substantial contributions to the history of Mexican medicine in the rst half of the twentieth century, this new work makes a foray into the second. An analysis of the relationship between Cold War politics, campaigns to eradicate malaria, the medical profession and the peasantry is timely and appropriate. It is especially to be welcomed because it approaches decades, which until recently so many historians were reluctant to approach, while many social scientists have increasingly seen them as beyond their remit. Cueto approaches the topic from international, national and local perspectives. By the 1950s the scientic, political and administrative environments were propitious for international campaigning against malaria. The symptoms, etiology and method of transmission of the disease had been established at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. A rm priority was attached to malaria when it aicted Allied troops in Asia and the Pacic during the Second World War. And the consolidation of international health institutions (with the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau being reshaped as the regional arm of the World Health Organisation) made possible the speedy pooling of experiences and diusion of methods. The author outlines persuasively how international health programmes, for all their appearance of rationality and neutrality, formed a convenient part of anti-Communist Cold war politics. Like atomic power, medical technology was used by the United States in its competition for hegemony with the Soviet Union. On the death of Stalin in 1953, the United States was especially anxious that the Soviet Union might become a more attractive model to poor countries, and sought new ways of projecting a global image of benevolence. Mexico was a convenient location for experiments with a programme of eradication. Several decades of exposure to US medicine through study by Mexican physicians in the United States and of co-operation with the Rockefeller Foundation in diverse health-care and agricultural projects eased the early stages of the relationship. Mexico, like various Latin American countries, possessed an established public health apparatus (but unlike most of Africa) and gave a strong emphasis on hygiene education, to which malaria eradication could be added. The application to Mexico of the model of yaws eradication in Haiti, of which Dr Francois Duvalier was the most notorious beneciary, and the evolution of pumps that produced a uniform dosage on sprayed surfaces and that required only a minimal technical knowledge to operate completed the picture. The stage was set for a campaign conducted in a military manner against the mosquito. A crusading zeal and the imperative of moral obligation swept aside objections from Nicaragua and El Salvador that eradication was not feasible without a vaccine. Earlier campaigners, like the

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Rockefeller Foundation, had been reluctant to assume a high prole in Latin America ; but no such hesitation inhibited the International Co-operation Agency and the PASB. Eradication, not control or incidence reduction, was a goal so singlemindedly pursued that PASB personnel were forbidden to use the word control . The eradication campaign was justied with the argument that the cost of an eradication campaign was less than the cost of the damage caused by one year of malaria, and was complemented by programmes of agrarian reform, peasant resettlement and the march to the seas . Schoolteachers and public health ocials were enlisted in the struggle against peasant opposition. While having some incidental benets, like reducing the incidence of dengue transmitted by the Aedes aegypti, the campaign aroused much resistance at the local level. Attempts to persuade indigenous Mexicans of the benets of Western medicine were often halfhearted, since translators into indigenous languages and anthropologists were scarce. Furthermore, there was little time for persuasion, given the speed with which a temporary mobile unit appeared in a village, sprayed houses, took blood samples, informed the authorities about feverish cases, and moved on. The tide slowly turned against the campaign. Physicians pointed to the risks posed to the lives of sprayers, fears of human cancer and problems of miscarriages among farm animals, as well as contamination caused by poor storage conditions. Anthropologists underlined the failure of campaigns to take either lack of health education or indigenous concepts of medicine (mosquitoes were seen as inconveniences to be smoked out, not a menace) into account. Campaign leaders like Fred Soper both assumed that peasants led static lives, when many were migrants who built new homes, and overlooked the damage to diet and income, when DDT killed hens and bees. By 1966 the campaign had stagnated. The Cold War entered a new phase ; a loss of impetus from above combined with resistance from below to cause a reappraisal of health policy ; and mosquitoes developed a new resistance. National concern at the fragmentation of the public health system was reinforced by the WHO, which stressed the urgency of a transition to national plan for basic health services, in which better mechanisms of assessment and surveillance would take a part. A shift from an emphasis on eradication to one on control seemed successful. No malariaattributed death was recorded in 1982. This new work is a model of its kind. It will be welcomed by Mexicanists, historians of medicine and social policy, and of the peasantry and of the professions alike. Some studies of the same period on similar and parallel themes in South American countries, especially Venezuela, would be most welcome. University College, London
CHRISTOPHER ABEL

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004902

Kristian Gustafson, Hostile Intent : US Covert Operations in Chile, 19641974 (Washington D.C. : Potomac Books, 2007), pp. xiv+317, $29.95, hb. An ex-Canadian Army ocer now historian, Kristian Gustafson, jumps into a fray that has been paved by Peter Kornbluths The Pinochet File : A Declassied Dossier on Atrocity and Accountability (New York & London : The New Press, 2003) and John Dinges in The Condor Years : How Pinochet and his Allies Brought Terrorism to Three Continents (New York & London : The New Press, 2005). Gustafson uses much of the same recently released declassied CIA and State Department sources as

Reviews

819

Kornbluth, who with colleagues at the National Security Archive facilitated the release of much of this evidence. That particular endeavour took years of work. In staking his approach, Gustafson opens with a series of questions : Did the Nixon administration _ try to have Allende assassinated ? Did the CIA _ engineer the coup that resulted in Allendes death? Did the CIA choose and groom General Augusto Pinochet _ ? Controversial stu to take on, and Gustafson engages the questions to a profound decree. In turn, he strives to stake out a vastly dierent argument than Dinges and Kornbluth. Moreover, Gustafsons focus remains on the CIA covert actions in Chile leading up to the overthrow of Allende and the following year. Potomac Books published this particular work, and this press focuses on military history and intelligence and security studies. Thus, his work attempts to discredit certain arguments that the United States was responsible for the overthrow of Allende and the rise of Augusto Pinochet by arguing that the United States did not attempt to organise a coup against Allende but instead to strengthen the opposition parties. The primary accomplishment of Gustafsons book is the unravelling of the roles of the CIA, State Department and other US government agencies in Chile. He demonstrates the intra-agency competition, distrust, and lack of political agreement concerning the most appropriate Chilean party or military ocers to support. In answering his questions of whether the Nixon administration attempted to assassinate Allende, Gustafson argues that it did not. However, he spends a signicant portion of the book revealing how it engaged in intrigue with CIA ocers, bypassing the State Department. In examining the kidnap plot and assassination of the constitutionalist General Rene Schneider, Gustafson does not reveal anything dis tinctive except to argue that the evidence does not reveal a direct connection between CIA agents and the murderers. However, he splendidly demonstrates that the CIA provided arms and funds to certain factions in the military as well as the opposition. Gustafson draws dierent conclusions from the evidence and engenders further questions. In examining Nixon and Henry Kissingers perceptions of Chile, I agree that they may not have been entirely focused on the narrow land. However there is no denying that they became interested in the wake of Allendes election and attempted to destabilise his presidency. Obviously, Chileans that disagreed with Popular Unity played a key role. However, I do not know any scholar who has attempted to dismiss Chilean agency in the overthrow and destabilisation of the regime. In the documentary Salvador Allende, Chilean lm-maker Patricio Guzman, captures the sense of responsibility even among members of the Communist Party for the overthrow and the dictatorship. Gustafsons reading of the history of policy is at times exasperating. He writes, the Nixon and Kissinger team was one of the most successful in US diplomatic history, but in the next paragraph he reveals how the team attempted to centralise authority and circumvent the State Department (p. 86). Further, he demonstrates the continued bumbling of the administration in Chile due in part because their needs for control and paranoia. He shows successively that the United States covert actions in Chile did not end in a clean coup and a return to democracy. In the interviews that he conducted, all those concerned argued that they assumed that the military junta would rule for a brief period followed by democratic elections. Over thirty years later in the area of policy, there is little analysis of the politicisation of memory of those who are accustomed to giving the most appropriate answer at the most appropriate time.

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Gustafsons goal of demonstrating the role of covert action in Chile may not have been completely on target. Whether or not Nixon and Kissinger envisioned a democratic end to their realpolitik means, there is no denying that the covert actions undertaken facilitated the rise and tacit approval of Augusto Pinochet as Dinges and Kornbluth have shown. St. Johns University (Queens, NY)
ELAINE CAREY

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004914

Frank O. Mora and Jerry W. Cooney, Paraguay and the United States : Distant Allies (Athens, GA : The University of Georgia Press, 2007), pp. xiv+333, $24.95, pb. Given the scarcity of research into Paraguayan foreign relations, and the importance of the United States in Paraguayan political history, a comprehensive study of the relationship between Paraguay and its closest international ally is long overdue. In Paraguay and the United States : Distant Allies, Frank O Mora, an established authority on US-Paraguayan relations, and the historian Jerry Cooney, seek to ll a void in the literature by analysing the development of Paraguays own special relationship . This is a fascinating book that not only carefully documents the development of economic, political and even cultural relations between the countries, but does so within a framework of historical analysis. Thus, in this sense, the book provides both an informative historical overview of the country as well as a highly informed analysis of a case study in international relations. This makes it broadly accessible to a wide audience, ranging from experts on Paraguay to students of international aairs to non-specialists. This outcome is aided by a highly accessible narrative style, which ows eloquently and makes the book a pleasurable as well as an informative read. The extensive, focused and relevant research that underpins the text is skilfully woven into the narrative, and is enhanced by detailed referencing throughout and a bibliographical essay in the appendix, which is suciently detailed and well written to be useful for all scholars of Paraguay. The rst sections of the book take us from 1840, through the Triple Alliance War (186470) to the attempts of the US to mediate in the Chaco War (193235), with careful documentation of the slow development of US interest in Paraguay. The narrative really takes o, however, with the rapid growth of US economic and political involvement during and immediately after the Second World War, as the US swiftly became Paraguays most important economic partner. From the outset, the authors make clear the political dimension of economic and military aid as a lever with which the United States could pressure Paraguayan domestic politics into a pattern more favourable to its own interests, whilst for certain Paraguayan elite interests (such as the Colorado Party) US material support represented a key component of retention of power. Leverage, benets and manipulation were to a great extent mutual. The special relationship reached its peak of course during the earlier years of the dictatorship of Alfredo Stroessner (195489), and it is in this section, which takes up almost 40 percent of the book, that the analysis, research and documentation is at its very best. Through detailed research, Mora and Cooney argue coherently and knowledgeably how, in return for almost unconditional Paraguayan support for US policy and signicant leverage in domestic aairs, the US oered political legitimacy as well as economic and military aid to enable Stroessner to establish

Reviews

821

himself in power, modernise the country and nance the considerable webs of patronage and corruption that underpinned party and military loyalty. Indeed, the authors argue that through ve successive administrations (between 1954 and 1977), US backing was the mainstay of the regimes political survival. The authors also make clear the cynical nature of the relationship. Whilst Washington was willing to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses, corruption, drug smuggling and lack of democracy, Stroessner sought to manipulate US Cold War fears, cynically exaggerating the communist threat, presenting himself as a staunch supporter of US regional interests. Despite increasing discomfort with elements of the Stroessner regime, it was not until the Carter administration that relations began to deteriorate, a process that continued under Reagan (for very dierent reasons), as Paraguay became increasingly isolated in a continent undergoing a wave of democratisation. The nal 30 pages examine the transition (1989-present), as the US reasserted itself as a major political actor in Paraguayan domestic politics, applying pressure on the ruling Colorado Party to protect democratic institutions and procedures, whilst pursuing its own agenda regarding narcotics, contraband and violation of intellectual property rights. The documentation of events continues to be outstanding and the link between the growth of the US role in domestic aairs and the weakness and lack of legitimacy of Paraguayan democratic institutions and elites is clearly and eectively made. However, there is no real critical questioning of the level of US inuence in Paraguayan politics, its role as ultimate domestic arbiter (p. 258) and its ability to shape any, perhaps all, political outcomes in Paraguay (p. 253). Instead, the implication that is made is that the US will continue to protect Paraguays democratic institutions and that closer trade and security links with the US are both likely and positive. The desirability of a sovereign nation allowing a foreign power to wield such inuence in domestic politics is left unexplored. The section is also comparatively brief, with the authors choosing to end the book with the 1999 political crisis, and then oer a short ve-page epilogue, which briey discusses events since then in very general terms and with a limited focus on security and anti-terrorism. This is a pity for a book published in 2007, especially given the many important issues that have emerged over the period including the fascinating relationship between Nicanor Duarte Frutos (20042008) and the US government which would have enriched this study. Perhaps too what would have most enhanced this work would have been an overview chapter, whether introductory or concluding. With such a wealth of detailed information emerging from the Paraguayan case study, it is to be regretted that a broader analysis of the trajectory, nature, dangers and limits of such an asymmetrical relationship is not developed within a theoretical framework. The book deserves such a chapter to bring together the many related but dierent strands of this relationship which are so well documented throughout. However, this remains an impressive, eloquently written and fascinating book, and an important and welcome addition to the literature, which will appeal to scholars and students alike. The research is detailed and painstakingly woven into a uent narrative which guides us through the complex history of an intimate but highly asymmetrical relationship which while of only marginal importance to the US, as the authors point out, has shaped and dened much of Paraguayan domestic politics over the past 60 years. University of Bath
PETER LAMBERT

822

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doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004926

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

Emilio Betances, The Catholic Church and Power Politics in Latin America : The Dominican Case in Comparative Perspective (Plymouth : Rowman & Littleeld, 2007), pp. xvi+275, 53.00, 21.99 pb ; E83.48, E34.63 pb. This is an interesting and substantial study of how the Catholic Church positions and repositions itself in social and political life. The case in point is the Dominican Republic, relatively understudied but with a history of great interest in these areas. The author brings a wealth of historical and contemporary detail to bear on how the Catholic Church carved out a new role for itself in the aftermath of the Trujillo dictatorship. The long historical portrait shows a weak institution moving from dependent accommodation to an overwhelmingly powerful dictatorship to a search for a new role, which the author sees as part outreach to hitherto ignored sectors like the poor (through social programmes) and part turning itself into a mediator viewed as acceptable by all sides. Mediation is the central organising concept the author deploys to describe what Catholic leaders wanted and achieved in the decades following Trujillo, civil war, the Balaguer regime, and the slow emergence of political democracy. In his view, after its long period of dependent accommodation with Trujillo, the church reinserts itself or reincorporates itself into the political process. Was the church not incorporated into politics with Trujillo, albeit in a dependent and subservient manner? The relation of mutual support with Trujillo was highly political not to say valuable. Over the period of his rule, he gave the Church more than US$ 26 billion, a huge sum even then, and helped them build churches and expand parishes. They gave him support and praise until, under Vatican pressure, a slow distancing began in the early 1960s and the bishops refused an ocial request to name Trujillo Benefactor of the Church, as he was already of the nation as a whole. If this is not a political relation, one wonders what does qualify. The author argues that mediation becomes a role for the church as a result of social and political pressures (p. 46). In this light, mediation is a survival strategy undertaken as a means of ensuring a continued role by becoming acceptable to all major players. Only in this way, Betances argues, can the Church manage a reincorporation and reinsertion of the kind that new times require non partisan, socially concerned but not giving up state support and subsidies. What the author appears to mean by political reincorporation or re insertion is that beginning in the late 1970s, church leaders specically avoided partisan or radical positions of any kind, and oered themselves as brokers or mediators, for example, in arranging terms of participation in the 1974 elections. They maintain, longer than in many other cases, a conservative mix of neo Christendom orientations (which rely on the notion of the church being ocial and ocially backed) with a powerful anti-leftism. The defeat of revolution in 1965 (by US occupation) squelched not only the political Left, but also the ecclesial Left, the same groups that elsewhere in the region advanced ideas of liberation, the popular church , and alliances with the Left. What emerges following the mid 1970s is a Catholic hierarchy that is conservative, non partisan, generally supportive of elections and political democracy, available to broker disputes and increasingly involved in social outreach. Although mediation is nowhere dened explicitly, this appears to be the core of what the author means by the concept. The author identies four major schools of thought that orient work on Catholicism, society and politics in Latin America : the institutionalist paradigm (the church is out to preserve its inuence) ; Bourdieus analysis of the religious eld ;

Reviews

823

Bastians ideas about the mutation of the religious eld, and Marxist world systems theory. He states that these approaches have helped me develop a cohesive approach to understand the relation between organized religion and politics (p. 6). An elaborate review of these theories follows, but does little to clarify the conceptual base of this book. In reality, Betances work is something one does not see much of lately a highly detailed institutional history of the Church in one country. This can be a very valuable approach and in this case the authors close attention to detail illuminates the experience of a hierarchy struggling to deal with a very rapidly changing environment. The political transformations are stark and wrenching : dictatorship, aborted revolution, occupation, the electoral authoritarianism of Balaguer, and the slow growth of democracy. But political change and conict is only part of the evolution of this country. Massive emigration, urbanisation and cultural changes including the emergence of a substantial sector of evangelical churches, which now occupy a legitimate and recognised position in national life, make the Dominican Republic of 2008 a very dierent world from the country Trujillo ruled for so long. These transformations are comparable to those in much of Latin America, and Betances extends the comparison with case studies of Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador. The reasons for choosing these particular cases is not clear but the analysis does underscore the dierence that aborted revolution and continued conservative domination in the church made for the Dominican Republic. Although the author devotes most of his attention to the Catholic Church and its leaders at the national level, he also provides valuable sub national studies especially in chapter ve which details how a social pastoral programme was developed and nurtured following the fall of Trujillo. Chapter six is an informative analysis of the growth and diversication of Protestantism, and of its emerging role as a political actor. The evolution of the Protestant sector in this small country is broadly comparable to what one can see elsewhere in the region, most notably Brazil, Peru, or at higher numerical levels, Guatemala. This is a valuable addition to the literature on religion and politics in Latin America. Single country studies have fallen out of favour in the recent literature on religion and politics, but this book shows their potential value. Returning to relatively traditional topics of church state relations and the resurgence of limited, mediating roles the author sheds light on an important and little studied case, and shows its relevance to broader processes in the region. This perspective can be refreshingly realistic, particularly given the oversold expectations presented by an earlier generation of work. University of Michigan
D A N I E L H. L E V I N E

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004938

Leigh A. Payne, Unsettling Accounts : Neither Truth nor Reconciliation in Confessions of State Violence (Durham, NC, and London : Duke University Press, 2008), pp. xvi+374, 55.00, 13.99 pb. In Ariel Dorfmans Death and the Maiden, Paulina says that all she wants of her former torturer is a confession. Paulinas husband, Gerardo, cautions : People can die of an excessive dose of the truth, you know (p. 279). Gerardos warning about the possible lethal consequences of free-owing truth is the focus of Unsettling Accounts,

824

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an important study of countries transitioning to democracy following repression, including state terrorism. In this wide-ranging, nuanced and provocative contribution to the literature on transitional justice, Payne challenges those scholars, among whom she names Jon Elster and Stephen Holmes, who argue that unrestricted debate over a countrys recent repressive past threatens democratic consolidation or continuity. She argues that open and vigorous contestation of truth between human rights violators and supporters of the former regime, on one hand, and human rights movements and their allies, on the other, actually reinforces democracy rather than undermining it. Confessions of state violence are potentially very unsettling because they often bring out gruesome details of torture, murder and disappearance, or by omitting the specics leave audiences to use their imaginations to ll in the blanks. These confessions, or unsettling accounts , create contentious coexistence , or a conictual dialogic approach to democracy in deeply divided societies , which in turn enhances democratic practices by provoking political participation, contestation, and competition (p. 3). Intense debate can lead to broadened acceptance by old regime supporters of human rights vocabulary and, as information about past repression circulates openly, nudge all but the hardest liners toward a more moderate position. Payne focuses on repressors confessions, which she calls performances . She analyses print, televised and radio-broadcast confessions using interviews, content and discourse analysis, and comparative historical approaches. The result is a captivating journey through the repressive pasts and conictive presents of Argentina, Chile, Brazil and South Africa a travelogue through the barbarous last third of the twentieth century. Each of the eight featured confessions is labelled according to Paynes analytical scheme. She begins with the 1995 televised performance of retired Argentine naval ocer Adolfo Scilingo (remorseful), who participated in death ights from the ESMA detention centre and whose story was disseminated in Horacio Verbitzkys El vuelo. Another Argentine naval ocer, the so-called blonde angel of death Alfredo Astiz (heroic), confessed in a very dierent tone, defending his patriotic actions in saving the patria from Marxist aggression. Shifting to Chile, Payne rst analyses the confession of Osvaldo el guato Romo (sadistic), a well-known DINA torturer n who alternately denies and admits his role and who particularly enjoyed sexually torturing women. Then DINA commander Manual Contreras (denial) rejects the charges against him and tries to shift responsibility to his boss Pinochet. The cases from Brazil stretch the ordinary understanding of confessions. The rst involves the military collectively (silence), which consistently refuses to comment on human rights violations during its dictatorship. The other is an autobiographical novel by former colonel Pedro Correa Cabral (ction and lies) on the disappearance of over one hundred young revolutionaries in the Amazon jungle in the early 1970s. Payne suggests that ction can be an eective form of confession in that it is not subject to the scrutiny applied to most other confessional forms. Finally, the book examines two confessions (amnesia and betrayal) from the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Following the featured confession, each chapter concludes comparatively by analysing confessions in similar styles from the four primary countries as well as Bosnia and the US wars in Vietnam and Iraq. The author emphasises that none of these confessions is direct, clean and comprehensive. Regardless of how they are labelled, all except perhaps the Brazilian militarys are ambiguous and likely to change over the duration of the repressors

Reviews

825

public engagement, and all are ultimately intended to serve the confessors interest, not the cause of truth. Casting the net as widely as Payne does invites the occasional error of fact or interpretation, a few of which might mislead the reader. The Chilean truth commission did not grant amnesty (p. 4). Amnesty in Chile dated from the militarys 1978 decree-law, which could only be repealed by legislative or judicial action both impossible throughout most of the 1990s. The gure of 10,000 tortured, killed and disappeared in Argentina (p. 6) ignores both the human rights movements estimate of 30,000 disappeared and the ocial tally of over 13,000. Pinochet did not lose a plebiscite over his 1980 constitution (p. 8). The 1988 plebiscite that he lost was on the proposition that he serve eight more years as president. Finally, while some democratic leaders certainly encouraged the damping down of debate over the past at critical moments, Payne does not provide evidence of democratic governments attempts to legislate silence (p. 35). Payne indicates that the eect of the confession is conditioned by both the performance itself and by external factors: institutional mechanisms (staging), political context (timing), and public response (audience) (p. 289). While the confessions are masterfully analysed from every possible angle from content and style of the language down to confessors facial expressions, body language, coiures and dress additional attention to external factors would have helped more eectively to explain the diering impacts the confessions had, why some (the Argentine and South African) truly were unsettling accounts and others (the Chilean and Brazilian) were not. To test Paynes thesis that free debate over the past forties democracy, one would have to measure the vitality and rootedness of democracy in the four countries. Since the confessions produced contentious coexistence in Argentina and South Africa, and Pinochets arrest in London and subsequent legal proceedings not Romos and Contrerass confessions yielded the same result in Chile, we might expect democracy to be more fragile in Brazil than in the other three countries. This may be true, but the book leaves that determination to the reader. Payne has broken fertile new ground in this compelling book. The novel use of confessions to bridge the experiences of transitional justice and democratic consolidation across national and cultural boundaries provides important insights into these processes that could fruitfully be applied to the dozens of additional countries grappling with the aftermath of highly repressive or state terrorist regimes. And while the book does not clearly verify Paynes core thesis, it certainly calls into question Gerardos warning about the dangers of unlimited truth. University of Nevada, Las Vegas
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008). doi:10.1017/S0022216X0800494X T H O M A S C. W R I G H T

Jorge Domnguez and Anthony Jones (eds.), The Construction of Democracy : Lessons from Practice and Research (Baltimore, MD : The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007), pp. viii+253, 33.50, hb. The academic and the prescriptive literatures on democratisation are seldom separate and distinct ; the former often tends, consciously or otherwise, to oer suggestions as to what to do or which path to take , while the latter as frequently suggests generalisations as to why a specic policy or policies can contribute to understanding why democratisation will thrive.

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The present volume is about as complete a blending of the two as one is likely to nd. It draws on the proceedings of the rst meeting of the Club of Madrid on democratic transition and consolidation (held in that city in 2001), and because that meeting brought together academics as well as practitioners, the resulting book has both. Its academic chapters are by a wide range of established scholars from Latin America and the United States, as well as Europe, but it also includes contributions by current and former elected ocials such as I. K. Gurjal (former prime minister of India), Anbal Cavaco Silva (former prime minister and also president of Portugal), Cesar Gaviria (former president of Colombia) and Fernando Henrique Cardoso (former president of Brazil). The book has four major sections. The rst is devoted to macro issues of democratic construction (economic challenges, strengthening pluralism and participation) ; the second focuses on electoral institutions (constitutions, executivelegislative relations) ; the third looks at implementation (reforming the state, the roles of the military and police forces, corruption) ; the last consists of brief cases presented by the high-level practitioners already mentioned (leaders from and of Brazil, Latin America, India, Portugal). There is little exceptionable from any of the essays. Many of the academic contributions are synthetic roundups (and extremely useful ones at that) that bring together much of the thought current at the time of the conference. To take but one of several examples : the Richards chapter on economic challenges presents a distillation of many of the pre-eminent political economists on the topic (Przeworski, Limongi, Maravall, Diamond), and then addresses the particular question of _ the role played by economic development in sustaining democracy once it has been established (p. 45). To do so Richards takes on several critical decision points (popular demands, costs of reform, liberalisation via big bang or gradualism, relations between the market and the state) ; he also distinguishes between postcommunist new democracies and Latin American older but highly unequal democracies, between countries with some record of economic reform prior to democratisation versus those with none, and between those countries who confront democracy above or below certain developmental thresholds and how their chances for surviving their confrontations vary. Most of the other academic chapters are analogous (at least roughly) in their scope and in their abilities to synthesise mainstream economics and political science, but go even further in their prescriptions. The Richard Simeon and Luc Turgeon chapter dealing with constitutional design, to take only one other example, not only lets the reader know what the recent relevant literatures have said and are saying, but also oers (as already discussed) step by step instructions on how to proceed to install a new constitution successfully (stakes in constitutional design, constitutional moments, constitution making, self-interest, timing, arenas, participants, decision rules and implementation). The book has much to give. For professional scholars and graduate students it oers much synthesis and much in the way of the choices that must be made (a point emphasised in several places by the editors). For the practitioner, references to specic cases (even if such cases consist of little more than passing references) outline choices that must be made and not skimmed over. As may be gathered, the scope of this rather slim volume is large indeed, and that is perhaps one of its shortcomings. The reader looking for detailed studies of a specic country or small cluster of countries will look in vain ; likewise, a reader who

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827

wishes to nd new empirical data or quantitative materials will not nd them here. And the reader searching for serious debates between or among the contributors will not nd those. It may well be, as the editors say (p. 5), that workshops held prior to the Club of Madrid meetings saw _ discussions _ (that) were prolonged and intense , but that intensity does not across in the nal product. In sum, the book is useful in a variety of ways, as I have discussed. It is not a breakthrough book theoretically or empirically, but its eort to include academics as well as practitioners makes it stand out from the crowd of other volumes on democratisation. University of Texas, Austin
H E N R Y A. D I E T Z

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004951

John Nellis and Nancy Birdsall (eds.), Reality Check : The Distributional Impact of Privatization in Developing Countries (Washington, DC : Center for Global Development, 2005), pp. 442, $23.95, pb. Has privatisation of infrastructure services such as water, telephone, electricity and gas reduced inequality and poverty ? More than a decade after the last wave of privatisations swept through Latin America, the authors in this volume evaluate the impact of privatisation on equity and conclude that privatisation has increased inequality slightly, but it has helped reduce poverty. Studies of privatisation have focused on the goals and implementation of reforms, the relationship between privatisation and liberalisation, impact on scal balance and employment, the entry of foreign multinational enterprises, opposition to privatisation, etc. Reality Check encourages researchers interested in poverty issues to shift their analysis away from privatisation. The authors suggest that we can learn more about poverty by looking at the progressive/regressive structure of tax systems, scal policies and the relationship between macroeconomic stability and poverty. The book looks at ten case studies in Latin America (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru), Eastern Europe (Russia and Ukraine) and Asia (China and Sri Lanka). It considers three industries in Argentina, Bolivia, Mexico and Nicaragua, namely, electricity, telephone and water. There is also a chapter on electricity, telephone and gas in Brazil and one on telephone in Peru. The rest of the chapters do not look at specic industries. To measure inequality, the authors calculate the Gini coecient and Atkinson inequality indices before privatisation. Then they take each households per capita expenditures before privatisation, add the estimated per capita change in consumer welfare, and recalculate the inequality measures. For poverty they use household income or expenditures. They regard changes in budget shares of services as an approximation of the relative welfare eect of a change in their price. To measure the price elasticity of each service, the authors use the concept of virtual price for consumers who did not have access to the service before privatisation. This is the lowest price at which a household would have chosen to consume zero units of the service before privatisation if it had had access to the service in question. The welfare change is calculated by looking at the change in price from the virtual price to the price after privatisation. The main conclusion in the book is that privatisation has increased inequality slightly (change in the Gini coecient is 0.02), but has reduced poverty. The eect

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of privatisation on prices varied. In Argentina it fell in all of the industries by an average of 23 %. Telephone and water services fell by ten percent in Bolivia (except in Cochabamba), but electricity increased by 26 percent. In Mexico, telephone increased by 48 percent and water by nine percent and in Nicaragua electricity increased by 24 percent. The authors attribute these hikes to two factors: price subsidies before privatisation and lack of competition after. Prices have a strong impact on inequality, especially because they aect the share of expenditures by the poor families. However, even where prices rose, privatisation resulted in welfare gains thanks to expansion of service. Access to telephone increased by an average of 32 percent, water by eight percent and electricity by six percent. The eects on employment were signicant in the short run, especially in Mexico and Argentina, where layos following privatisation were the equivalent of one percent and two percent of the economies workforce, compared to only 0.12 percent in Bolivia. However, a signicant proportion of laid-o workers found employment in the same industry (50 percent in less than a year in Mexico and 90 percent within four years in Argentina). Wages tended to be lower in the private sector and many employees decided to work longer to compensate. Demand for skilled labour increased, contributing to the increase in wage inequality. The eects of privatisation on scal policy were signicant. Proceeds from the sale of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) amounted to one percent of GDP, but the scal impact of privatisation goes beyond the one-time payment states received from the sale. Since many of the SOEs were heavily subsidised and poor people lacked access to the services they provided, SOEs were an instrument by which the poor subsidised some of the services of the upper and middle classes. Privatisation reduced, but did not eliminate, this regressive tax system. The tax revenue collected by national, regional and local governments from the privatised rms is one percent of tax revenue for all levels of government. Since these services are heavily taxed and the poor need to devote a high share of their income to pay them, the poor who gained access to these services are still taxed more heavily. Reality Check also includes chapters on Russia, Ukraine, China and Sri Lanka, but they focus mainly on the eects of privatisation on capital and labour productivity and to a lesser extent on wages and prices, so they do not provide such a thorough analysis of the impact of privatisation on inequality and poverty. However, some of their conclusions are similar to those of the chapters on Latin America, mainly with regards to the expansion of access and improvements in quality of service, gains in capital and labour productivity and reductions of employment in the short run. There are also important dierences, such as signicant hikes in wages and inequality, mainly in Russia. This is due in part to the long history of state planning. For more meaningful comparisons and conclusions all of the chapters should look at the same variables, using equivalent data when available. In spite of this, Reality Check is a great volume that provides a thorough look at the impact of privatisation on inequality. It raises very important questions that need further research. If privatisation has reduced poverty, why has it not been more popular? Why do politicians have such a hard time pushing privatisation programs ? Why are the main beneciaries of privatisation (the poor) so critical ? Should income considerations be introduced as part of future infrastructure reforms ? What scal reforms are needed to make the tax system more progressive ? Beloit College
PABLO TORAL

Reviews
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008). doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004963

829

Rory Miller & Liz Crolley (eds.), Football in the Americas : Futbol, Futebol, Soccer (London : Institute for the Study of the Americas, 2007), pp. xv+291, 15.00, pb. As a rapidly growing range of degree courses, scholarly articles and conference papers attest, the study of football as a serious discipline has over the last ten years mushroomed. Initially, much like the sport itself, the eld was dominated by Europeans both in terms of analysis and object of study. In recent years however, the study of the only truly global sport has been illuminated by a proliferation of studies of, and analyses from, Latin America, long a heartland of the global game. Broadly, studies of football in the Americas have been historical, sociological or anthropological. In the rst of these categories, studies on the development of the game from its arrival in the kitbags of British merchant seaman across the region have a proud tradition. The latter two categories have been well-served across a range of case studies, notably examination of fan behaviour and aliation in terms of ethnicity, social class, and other variables. Miller and Crolleys edited volume certainly reects these long-run approaches, but steps beyond that in laying out a comparative view of football in the Americas at the beginning of the 21st century. Originating in a unique conference in London in 2003, the essays in this volume are organised in three sections, the rst composed of two broad-brush chapters by Richard Giulianotti, on the historical globalisation of Latin American football, and by Alan Gilbert, on the comparative signicance of geographic factors in the relative success of European and Latin American football clubs. Taken together, these two essays remind us, pace long-standing critiques of the assumed recent phenomenon of globalisation, that both Latin Americas peripheral role in global political economy, and its unique path of urbanisation through the twentieth century, have critically formed and informed the regional development of football. The second section moves on to focus, in a series of case studies of Argentine, Brazilian, Mexican and Peruvian football, on the questions of identity and selfidentifying which have formed a signicant part of the scholarly football literature in both global and Americas specic terms. Thus Sergio Leite Lopes illuminates the development of Brazilian national identity through a comparison of Brazilian reactions to the defeat of their national team in the World Cup Finals of 1950 and 1998. Where the infamous 1950 defeat to Uruguay in the Maracana was a clear moment of crisis for Brazilian national identity, highlighted in racialised public discourse around the reasons for the defeat, responses to the 1998 defeat to France underlined that national identity was now not at stake. Footballs central role in reinforcing specic constructions of national identity, shaped by critical junctures in that countrys political economy, is also dealt with in Pablo Alabarcess intriguing examination of the role of the Argentinas 2002 World Cup campaign in the reconstruction of an Argentine national identity shattered by the crisis of late 2001. Three further essays in this rst section also deal with issues of identity, both at the micro, individual club and barrio level, and on the larger macro scale of the national. Not the least notable feature of these three essays is that they focus on Mexican and Peruvian football, long under-represented in an academic literature which has focused predominantly on the more footballistically successful Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. This breadth of geographical focus is welcome, asking fresh research questions of countries where football may be less internationally successful, but as is made clear in these

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contributions, is nonetheless highly signicant as a cultural and socio-economic dynamic. The third section of the book looks frankly at the business of football in the Americas. Amongst the rapidly developing scholarly canon of football, it is perhaps this area of research that has shown most growth in recent times, not least because the increased global marketisation and nancial resources of football have drawn signicant interest from scholars more usually to be found looking at other areas of economics and business. Over and above sociological and cultural examinations of the sport, analysis of football economics and nance is currently eliciting the most valuable questions, and sometimes answers, to our understanding of football as a global phenomenon. In an initial survey of the business of football in Latin America, Gideon Rachmann reminds us, rightly, that many of the economic problems that beset Latin American football, often understood in the European mind as being typically Latin American, are in fact equally common elsewhere, not least in the supposedly more transparent and stable arena of European football. This point is given cogent support in Katherine Jones analysis of the travails of the Womens United Soccer Association (WUSA) in the USA, where the potential for building a successful womens professional soccer league is perhaps greater than in any other country. Girls and young women overwhelmingly choose soccer as their participatory sport of choice, yet the attempts of WUSA to package the game as a professionalised spectator sport backred spectacularly in 2003, raising questions about the highly gendered nature of football marketing. Further chapters on Brazil and Argentina highlight both the similarities between Latin American and European football business inadequacies and failings, and the country specic dynamics which contribute to those failings. Luiz de Martins Melo, in a chapter focused on the key nancial underpinnings of Brazilian football, perhaps expresses the overall picture best in the title of his contribution : Technical Success and Economic Failure . From the early 1990s, neo-liberal economic policies in Latin America both challenged the traditional shape of the professional game in the region, and coincided with the region increasingly functioning as a purveyor of natural resources footballers to the European market. The human dimension at the European end of the global football commodity chain is illuminated in Marcela Mora y Araujos closing essay on Latin American imports to English football. Whilst in Latin America, the footballers dream is to earn nancial security in the highest paying leagues in the world, the high salaries derived from commodication of their technical prowess has not always signied a happy development in their lives. Although the market welcomes them, English professional football has often seemed either too ignorant or too unwilling to recognise Latin American players as people, not products. The failure amongst top-level English clubs to understand that even the highest paid athletes can suer cultural dislocation has often had dicult consequences, as Mora y Araujos remarks on the case of the Colombian Juan Pablo Angel makes clear. In sum, this volume is a highly signicant addition to the literature on football in the Americas. Well-framed by Rory Millers introductory chapter, the disparate case studies brought together here provide a superb introduction to the sport in the region. Ranging from the grassroots to the elite, shedding light on countries which have rarely beneted from sustained serious analyses of their football as well as the more often examined countries of the continental south, denaturalising outsiders

Reviews

831

cliched views of Latin American football in particular, and locating the peoples game within the core-periphery economic relationship, Miller and Crolleys volume certainly provides us with some answers, but more signicantly, is highly suggestive of a range of directions for future research. Foreign & Commonwealth Oce, London
LAURENCE ALLAN

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004975

Roger Magazine, Golden and Blue Like my Heart: Masculinity, Youth and Power among Soccer Fans in Mexico City (Tucson, AZ : University of Arizona Press, 2007), pp. xiii+223, $45.00, $24.95 pb. For a long time, in works reporting upon sport in Latin America, there have been frequent moans concerning the underdevelopment of the topic. I have voiced my own complaints in several papers, arguing for the possibilities and agendas, and insisting on the diculties, the absences, the resistances of traditional disciplines in the social sciences (especially sociology, anthropology, history). In 1999 we started a working group on Deporte y Sociedad (Sports and Society) at CLACSO (The Latin American Council for Social Sciences) with the diagnosis of a potential eld of research, a clandestine research that pushed its way onto the social science agenda. The Latin American social sciences seemed blind to the unavoidable presence of sports in every day life in the continent ; academics couldnt acknowledge that some of the key debates of our culture and our sociality were happening around sports (and especially, football). Among some possibilities, sports allows us to discuss the new ways to congure identities, from local to national, and it allows (us) to debate the meanings of violence among youth in larger numbers and conducted in more spectacular ways than among urban tribes which had, however, found favour among the academy. Finally, here is a stage for the concentration and growth of monopoly capital in mass communications, which have constructed multimedia emporiums and devastated markets with the help of sports television it is easier, for example, to appreciate the power of Televisa in Mexican football than in other aspects of social life. Ten years on, the frame is radically dierent. As many Latin American readers already know, the studies of sport in the continent have abandoned clandestinity. And even though they remain (and will remain) condemned to the periphery of academic legitimacy (never will an analysis of Colombian supporters or the heroism of Maradona or Romario win any grand disciplinary awards) research has grown in quantity, visibility, strength and rigour. Beyond the essay, sustained by contemporary categories and tools of sociology and anthropology research on sport and society no longer require the annoying introductions nor need they deny the old motto of the modern opium of the people that the visions of the 1960s had armed. Today, research can move along the paths opened by Roberto Da Matta in Brazil and Eduardo Archetti in Argentina : sport as a privileged focus for studying our societies, their imaginaries, their wishes, their fantasies, their miseries. Or, as Roger Magazine states : [soccer fandom] oers an opportunity to observe the everyday social dreams, projects, and divisions that are subsumed in Mexicos dominant collective imaginaries and overlooked in subtle ways by studies that begin and end with traditional sociological categories, such as class, civil society and state, derived from the colonizers societies (p. 15).

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The meticulous and at the same time creative ethnography of Magazine amongst the fans of the UNAM Pumas, the porra, is an excellent example of what these studies can produce of the risks they must avoid, of the challenges they might face. Football culture, read through the fans, avoids the bad metaphor of the reection ; on the opposite, the actions of the fans are themselves creative, engaging, concrete action constitutive of material world (p. 15). Therefore, the relations between football and contemporary politics and society organisation are not ruled by reproduction but by its transformation tensions : fans debate between a clientelism they detect and reject, and a paternalism from which they cant escape. The porra becomes a text where to analyse a subaltern reading of the clientelism, only beatable by the desire, the emotion and the passion of the fans, last remaining spaces of authenticity in a world colonised by mercantilisation and by the world it refers to, both football and to society in general. There is a sort of neo-romanticism in which the members of the porra strengthen their distinction of young because they understand, sharply, that the articulation of age is the most meaningful. But that meaning doesnt transform the porra in a sort of social and political Mexican vanguard ; Magazine smartly displays the temptations and diculties of this possibility : It may be going too far to suggest that the porra members ideal vision represents a potential alternative future for Mexican society as a whole, in the sense of completely replacing clientelism, neoliberalism, and other possibilities at the national level (p. 204). But, at the same time, the porra points out the desire, at least, of a sort of antisystemic sociality that encourages and allows expression and enjoyment (dem). Magazines analysis makes it possible to see another side of the topic that is important for fellow investigations all across the continent. Despite the particularity of the practices of violence of the porras, Magazine marks both a dierence and a continuity. Latin American hinchadas are far from a simple mimic of British hooligans ; on the contrary, their autonomy is specically continental Magazine remarks that the role model fan proceeds from Argentina, Brazil and Chile, especially through television, going to grotesque extremes such as the imitation of Argentinean songs that include the use of the Marcha Peronista (Peronist March), a song used in another time as purely political and local. But, at the same time, the Mexican governments reactions against this violence reproduce those of Thatchers government in the 1980s, consisting on purely repressive, stigmatising and discriminative characteristics. This sign I insist : with style and practical dierences, with continuity regarding to repression is another of the great merits of Magazines book. It creates a new knowledge, adds knowledge, incorporates elements empirically and interpretatively essential to the development of a democratic debate on violence. On this point, the book joins works by Andres Fabregas Puig in Mexico, Carlos Pimenta and Henrique Toledo in Brazil, and Jose Garriga Zucal in Argentina. That there are so few mentioned is an indication of how much further research remains necessary. University of Buenos Aires CONICET
J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008). doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004987 PABLO ALABARCES

Darien J. Davis (ed.), Beyond Slavery : The Multilayered Legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean (Lanham, MD : Rowman & Littleeld, 2007), pp. viii+289, $75.00, $29.95 pb. In 1995 Darien Davis edited a collection of articles entitled Slavery and Beyond : The African Impact on Latin America and the Caribbean (Scholarly Resources, Inc.).

Reviews

833

The present work with its similar title picks up on many of the themes of its predecessor, shifting focus slightly in response to the many works on Afro-Latin American topics that have appeared over the past decade. Unlike the earlier book, these articles, except in one case, have not been previously published. According to his introduction, Davis aim is to reveal the dierent ways that African peoples have had an impact on Latin America from 1800 to the present day. The emphasis, as his sub-title indicates, is on their multifaceted legacies , a testament, he writes, to their ingenuity and creativity in a world in which their freedoms were severely restricted (p. 2). The contributors have interpreted legacy in a variety of ways, producing a collection that is interesting and informative, but lacking in coherence and, ultimately, confusing about what that legacy has been. The book is divided into four sections. The rst deals with the independence and early national periods when slavery was still in full ight in most of the region and which, consequently, seems somewhat at odds with the books title. David Geggus examines the impact on Latin America of what is often cited as the most important event with regard to the slave struggle in the Americas, the Haitian revolution. But after considering such things as resistance, race relations and abolition, he concludes that its inuence was often ambiguous ; its repercussions, contradictory (p. 32). On the other hand, Camilla Townsends study of slaves in Ecuador between independence and abolition nds plenty of evidence of black resistance in the eorts of slaves to secure their freedom. One recurring device that appeared in the rst decades of the period was the slaves use of the metaphor of independence to justify their claim for personal liberty. In the process, she argues, slaves played a central role in the movement toward abolition. It is a conclusion shared by Eduardo Silva who looks at the role of a Rio de Janeiro quilombo, or runaway community, in the Brazilian abolitionist movement. In time and theme, Silvas chapter seems to t into this rst section, but for some reason has been placed in the second. In the case of early republican Argentina, slaves were active as well, but Ricardo Salvatore suggests that the Afro-Argentines almost disappeared after abolition, in large part because of the negative view that developed around them because of their earlier ties with the Buenos Aires governor Juan Manuel de Rosas and the benets they enjoyed at that time. As a result, their importance in forming Argentina remained unrecognised. In Honduras a similar disappearing act was evident, according to Dario Euraque. Here, the black population was split between local blacks with roots in the colonial period and recently arrived Black Caribs. The former came to deny their African ancestry as they were absorbed by the process of racial mixing during the twentieth century when Honduras tried to dene itself as a homogenous mestizo nation. The second section is entitled rather vaguely Dialogues and Challenges to Full Citizenship. In addition to the Silva contribution, it includes a chapter by Aline Helg on Afro-Cubans in post-independence Cuba that is extracted from her award-winning book. She focuses on the Cuban myth of racial equality as seen in the failure of the black population to establish a position of inuence in the newly independent country, the establishment of the Partido Independiente de Color to try to secure that racial equality, and its brutal repression in 1912. Once again one wonders what this tells us about the African legacy. The book gets back on track when the editor and Judith Michelle Williams describe the attempts at celebrating blackness that took place in the francophone Caribbean, Cuba and Brazil from 1930 to the 1950s in response to Marcus Garveys call for pan-Africanism and the francophone movement known as Negritude . The evidence comes from an

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examination of some of the important but largely unrecognised cultural developments of the time. The third section, entitled Displacement, Transnationalism, and Globalization , introduces developments from more recent decades. Black suering is once again evident in Aviva Chomskys study of Afro-Colombians who have been displaced by the decades of internal warfare and the accompanying land grab by multinational corporations to expand commercial holdings and mining operations. But as she shows, not all of the peasants aected have been Afro-Colombians, so that this is not just a racial issue. The nal two chapters examine some of the diasporic elements of the African legacy that tie Afro-Latin Americans to the United States. Sujatha Fernandes and Jason Stanyek discuss hip-hop to see whether the pattern of urban dissonance that is central to the musics development in the United States has also been evident in Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil. They nd elements of protest in all three countries, with the groups incorporating aspects of their particular realities to create distinctive branches of hip-hop. Bobby Vaughn and Ben Vinson III reverse the diasporic element to examine the impact of Afro-Mexican migrants in North Carolina. One of the most interesting points in this chapter was the failure of AfroAmericans in the state to recognise the newcomers as black. The book concludes with a short overview by the editor of Latin American lms dealing with black issues and showcasing black actors. The various articles show that the black experience has been extensive and now is reaching farther aeld as a result of migration and globalisation. But the picture of suering, abuse, discrimination and even resistance that emerges from many of these pages indicate that this is more about the legacy of slavery than that of Africans. Tightening the focus and applying a more rigorous editing at various levels would have made this a more useful teaching tool. University of Toronto
PETER BLANCHARD

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08004999

Matthias Rohrig Assuncao, Capoeira : The History of an Afro-Brazilian Martial Art (London and New York : Routledge, 2006), pp. xiii+267, 30.00, pb. The Capoeira world has grown substantially over the past two decades as it departed from Salvador da Bahia and spread to reach places as far as Singapore and Australia, and through its travels has adapted in ways some of its practitioners often fail to recognise. Matthias Rohrig Assuncaos book provides a powerful contribution to the growing literature about Capoeira, dealing eectively with many of the myths and debates that surround its turbulent past. Debates both within academic and practitioner circles have raged for years about the exact origins of Capoeira. At one extreme, both practitioners and academics have claimed it arrived in Brazil as seen today, while at the other end it is believed to be a Brazilian manifestation of cultural production. The author maintains that no such evidence exists to guarantee either idea and, instead of engaging in supporting one thesis over the other, he exposes how two competing narratives were developed in conjunction with particular sociopolitical objectives. In the case of Capoeiras African origins, he moves to disprove much of the evidence that is commonly relied upon to bolster its support, painting a more complex yet nuanced version of the development of its origins. He weaves into his

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analysis the eects socio-political movements in early post-abolition period had on those involved with investigating its origins. Surprisingly, he does not give much credence to oral traditions, maintaining that although numerous versions of Capoeiras origins have been transmitted in this way, because of lack of written evidence, they cannot be trusted as representative of actual historical fact. Indeed Capoeiras oral traditions illustrate fantastic stories that often defy logic. Yet such practices have been the bedrock of historical recordings across a variety of cultures for centuries and to not investigate them in a way that respects this form of fact gathering helps to fuel the idea that written evidence is the most valuable form of knowledge. The counter debate regarding the African-derived origins of Capoeira often denies its connection with African combat games while the author illustrates a complex association with these African traditions and the evolution of Capoeira. Without Africans and their contributions, Capoeira would not exist in Brazil. The author moves on to describe the evolution of Capoeira in Rio de Janeiro and then Bahia, considered its stronghold. He also describes the intricate but important role of its two most prominent gures ; Mestre Pastinha and Mestre Bimba who were responsible for the resurgence of the Angola and the creation of the Regional styles, respectively. Assuncao suggests their roles were often far more complex than is recognised. For Bimba, many criticise him for changing Capoeira from its original state adding movements from Asian martial systems and catering to a white middle-class audience which has largely been seen as cooption of the art form by a broader Brazilian society away from its poor, black and slave roots. Yet Assuncao reveals that Bimba remained an integral gure in the revival and maintenance of the art form and without him Capoeira may have disappeared all together from the vast repertoire of cultural expressions of its Afro-Bahian practitioners. Practitioners of the Angola style of Capoeira often disregard the contributions of Bimba, claiming that instead of reviving the art form he bastardised it and ultimately conformed to outside pressures that condoned the art form as too black or too violent. Pastinha on the other hand is heralded as a true champion of the more traditional form of Capoeira, yet despite his eorts Assuncao argues that Bimba paved the way for a revival of the Angola style as well and allowed it to gain increased prominence as a legitimate form of expression of Afro-Bahian culture. The struggle for space within society as a legitimate art form has always plagued Capoeira from its roots as a form of resistance against slavery, to the formation of Capoeira gangs to its association with vagrancy and violence, to its contemporary form of legitimate cultural expression. Assuncao highlights the dynamic transform ations Capoeira has undergone and ultimately proves that it is not a static entity which has somehow been frozen in time, exhibiting the same characteristics since its birth and subsequent evolution. The chapter on contemporary Capoeira maintains this thesis demonstrating clearly that with its subsequent globalisation it has undergone further adaptations. The author addresses some of the most controversial debates within the community while leaving out others, which diminishes slightly his ability to fully engage in a broad examination of the art. He explores debates that evolved in the United States as a consequence of its induction into Afrocentric/Black Diaspora communities where black Americans introduced the notion that only people of African descent should be permitted to practice Capoeira. He eludes to a debate that has long laid dormant about the nature and character of many of the mestres of Capoeira that are accustomed to what is commonly referred to in Brazil as the vagabundo lifestyle (literally, vagabond, but associated with colloquial

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English term hustling ). The sometimes manipulative manner with which some operate academies is a discussion reserved for Capoeira insiders because it is an aspect of the art that is only experienced by long-time practitioners and those who become involved in the day to day operations. He rightly explores the dichotomy between native Brazilian practitioners and foreigners who have yet to receive any formal indication of their dedication to its practice and the politics that serve to maintain the root of its power within Brazilian and more specically Afro-Brazilian hands. Assuncao renders a very complete picture despite veering away from some of Capoeiras most contentious debates. Capoeira remains an incredibly adaptable art form that has survived centuries of persecution and the author does well to explore the many ways in which adaptations have ensured its continued celebrity. The London School of Economics
C H R I S T O P H E R M. J O H N S O N

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08005002

Ana Mariella Bacigalupo, Shamans of the Foye Tree : Gender, Power, and Healing among Chilean Mapuche (Austin, TX : University of Texas Press, 2007), pp. xi+321, 13.99, pb. Machi, commonly dened as Mapuche shamans, symbolise indigenous traditional culture for Mapuche and non-Mapuche Chileans, and represent therefore Otherness in a paradigmatic sense. As their shamanic practices articulate masculine as well as feminine characteristics, they both illustrate and challenge gender norms and representations. Drawing on her fteen-years-old collaboration and friendship with male and female machi, Bacigalupo addresses the notions of co-genderism and shamanism, as well as the role of gendered gures in constructions of Chilean national discourses. The volume oers an insightful analysis of the binaries that structure discourses of and about machi. The rst is the idea of a male-female dichotomy that rests upon biological (genital) status. To show how machi articulate this dichotomy, Bacigalupo describes ritual practices to restore individual, relational and collective wholeness. She stresses that Mapuche shamanic practices do not t into the polarised categories of possession, labelled in classical shamanic research as a feminine trance state because of its supposed passivity, and ecstatic ights , dened as spiritual ght against negative spirits. A central and very original contribution is Bacigalupos account of historical narratives to understand another set of binaries, based upon the paradigm of penetration. The author analyses how Spanish conquistadors interpreted shamanic performances of both feminine and masculine identities as a mark of deviant sexuality, a monstrous fusing of male and female, generating confusion of sexes and therefore chaos in society. The politics based on such representations led to a gradual separation of political and spiritual power of the former machi, the realm of spirituality becoming more and more feminine, and female machi more numerous. But even so, female as well as male machi put on distinctive gender identities during ritualised moments. They adopt what Bacigalupo name co-gendered identities. Nevertheless, if male and female machi experience both relational and individual modes of personhood inside ritual contexts, they have to comply with the gender norms of mainstream Chilean and Mapuche society in their everyday lives. That is why male

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machi have to nd strategies to draw a clear frontier between themselves and passive women and non-masculine men. To rearm and gain social legitimacy, they use mainstream society male gures like priests and doctors. Bacigalupo analyses the use by Chilean national discourses as well as by Mapuche resistance movements of the images of female machi. She shows how, as presumed bearers of tradition and spirituality, they serve political agendas that promote and reinforce national gender restrictions, and how the feminisation of spirituality justify the paternalism of the state. A point of peculiar interest is Bacigalupos portrayal of various female machi and their strategies to position themselves as modern and traditional women. Those who have chosen to stay in rural settings see themselves primarily as daughters, mothers and wives, all categories linked to the idea of domesticity. But the female machi she worked with transgress gender norms, looking for ways to show their special status, that allow journeys away from home and to express themselves in the public sphere. Anyway, female machi see marriage and mothering as central to gaining a better social status, even if it may be interfering with their spiritual power. Female machi use their shamanic beliefs, in which political ideology does not prevail, to redene power for their own end. To some extent, where male machi have to deal with homophobic suspicion, female machi have to face witchcraft accusations. However, it remains unclear what these witchcraft accusations represent. Bacigalupo generally insists upon their connection with colonial stereotypes, even if she also arms that witchcraft is necessary to maintain the wholeness of Mapuche society. As a matter of fact, wholeness is ensured by the tension between health and illness, life and death, individual gain and reciprocity, as well as normality and deviance. Such ambivalences in Bacigalupos analyses surely serve as illustration for the complexity, diversity, pluralism and creativity of Mapuche people in general and machi in particular. Anyway, one can regret what seems to be a lack of precision on various aspects. For instance, on an analytical level, it remains unclear to what extend some English notions used by the author are shared by her machi friends. This appears also in the haziness of her transcription of mapuzungun words. Furthermore, it would be interesting to have more details/descriptions about the concrete social context of the machi. Bacigalupo often speaks of the opposition between Mapuche society and what she names sometimes the Chilean, sometimes the wingka one. If this construction of the Mapuche as, in some aspects, the nonChilean is common in Chile, it would be necessary to question more precisely those categorisations. Finally, the fact that machi seem to nd their patients not as much within as outside their community (another term that should be discussed) might have lead Bacigalupo to increase her reection about the local social context. What kinds of relationships exist between machi and members of comunidades, a legal category imposed and dened by the Chilean state ? What does the imperative to marry and to bear children mean for women in general, and not only for female machi ? To what extent do Mapuche gender categorisations correspond with non-Mapuche ones ? In spite of those remarks, it remains a real pleasure to read Bacigalupos book, as she understands how to make a proper use of her own experience as a machi helper and patient. Her honest and intelligent writing helps to gain a deeper insight into this peculiar world that questions the mainstream gendered categories of homosexuality, heterosexuality, transvestism, transgenderism and normality. In that sense, her choice to take the foye tree, a tree with hermaphrodite owers used during rituals,

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as a thread to illustrate the gender uidity of the machi, is appropriate, as is her conclusion that distinctive machi ll dierent needs in Mapuche society. MAPS University of Neuchatel
ANNE LAVANCHY

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08005014

Nick Henck, Subcommander Marcos : The Man and the Mask (Durham, NC, and London : Duke University Press, 2007), pp. xxv+499, 64.00, 14.99 pb. On 1 January 1994, just as the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) went into action, the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN, according to its Spanish acronym) took over four cities in the southern region of Chiapas, saying enough is enough , demanding the resignation of the President and the establishment of a temporary government. The Zapatistas cried out for freedom, democracy and justice citing their armed struggle as the only alternative for the indigenous people of Chiapas. The days that followed were lled with bullets ying between the EZLN and the Mexican army. After ten days however, a cease-re was declared and the battle morphed into a media war. The Zapatistas had a media-savvy spokesperson ; whilst the government beneted from their command over the national media. Since then, much has been written about the Zapatista movement both nationally and internationally ; in academic texts and news articles ; in lms and documentaries. But little has directly focused on the gure of Subcomandante Marcos. This is what Nick Henck tackles in Subcommander Marcos : The Man and the Mask, the rst biography of this revolutionary leader to be written in English. The book is divided into three parts (in order) to depict what Marcos himself has referred to as the three Marcoses: Marcos of the past who has a past, Marcos of the Mountains before the First of January (1994), and post-January Marcos . In Part I Rafael, Henck focuses on the early years of Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente the man declared by president Ernesto Zedillos government as being the real Subcomandante Marcos the man behind the mask. Hencks tone is somewhat messianic, not only because he regards Rafael as fullling a prophecy, but because the prophecy rests on such tenuous ground. Rafael fulls the prophecy of becoming a revolutionary leader according to Henck due to the fact that his year of birth coincides with the year in which Che Guevara and Fidel Castro established their rst foco in Cuba. This is further reinforced by his witnessing (as an 11 year old) the student movements and massacre of 1968 ; and experiencing the ruling political partys (PRI) high levels of repression and corruption. Moreover, Hencks use of Fran J. Sulloways research into birth order aects on personality, to lead toward the conclusion that Rafael was born to rebel . Apparently, Marcoss birth order and his fathers Quixotic disposition are predictive events in his development as a guerrilla reader. I cannot help but to feel at times, that Henck is being more of an astrologer than a historian. Alarmingly, Henck devotes much attention to this and concludes that as a laterborn with many siblings, Rafael conforms to the revolutionary elite pattern of Marx, Lenin, Trotsky and Castro. This evolutionary rhetoric is further reiterated through Hencks assertion (with the help of Rejai and Phillips), that Rafaels revolutionary character is due to his being a middle child _ with many siblings _ middle class [and] of mainstream variety in respect of ethnicity and religion _ and so on. This biological essentialism is further

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conrmed in the closing lines of the book, in which Henck describes the revolutionary as a breed and Marcos, as the possible next link in the evolutionary chain. Part II The Guerrilla , outlines the period in which Rafael entered the Lacandon jungle and how he emerged, on the cusp of a rebellion, as Subcomandante Marcos. These years not only provided Marcos with the ideological basis and training for the 1994 insurgency, but also as Henck recounts, it was the time in which the EZLN rst came to be established as a self-defence group to protect the peasants lands, where Marcos and the other comandantes trained the indigenous people of Chiapas. We also learn here how the people of Chiapas were highly politicised and ripe for the establishment of a military organisation. This section also provides a detailed account of the expansion of the EZLN, the intertwining, mixing and shifting of its structure, and the personal growth of Marcos, during which Henck, true to form, continues his parallelisms between Marcos and Guevara. An exhaustive overview of both national and international social and political events frames its last few chapters and outlines the conditions for the impending uprising. The nal section of this biography opens with the taking of San Cristo de las bal Casas and Marcos beginning as a Star Spokesman . Henck covers in detail the early moments of Marcos becoming and the rst few years of the movement (19941998). This includes moments such as : the unmasking of Marcos, the First Intercontinental encounter, Marcos communiques and the negotiations between the government and the EZLN. Unfortunately, very little attention is paid to the years from 1999 onwards when excitement surrounding the movement had begun to fade and Henck does little to suggest an explanation for this. So, for example, although he does make a special mention of the nal caravan and march into Mexico City in 2001, as well as the struggle between Marcos and then president Vicente Fox to control the media ; there is little analysis of this. In the concluding chapters of the book, Henck describes the Zapatistas most recent move set forth by their Sixth Declaration from the Lacandon Jungle announcing a new shift in their politics and a Zapatista Other Campaign, with its aim of shaking the country up from below . This not only means a new tour , but also a new Subcommander Marcos, who will now be known as Delegate Zero. Henck picks up on this point and ends the book by alluding to Marcos as a hero, as the contemporary of old revolutionaries and as the future of new guerrillas and leaders. A few words of the books approach. Nick Henck begins by framing his reading of Marcos in terms of what he symbolises rather than what he does, in a way similar to how Che Guevara is often considered. This is indeed a crucial and explicit thread of Hencks biographical work, and one which at points obfuscates his depiction of Marcos. Although Henck provides an exhaustive list of facts , and extensive archival research, he fails to really engage critically with his material. For example, the book opens with a collection of quotes which reference the mask , but there is no analysis of the signicance of the mask. This is evident through Hencks interplay of Marcos and Sebastian which he uses at points as if they were one and the same. It is in the subtle nuances where the interesting character of Subcommander Marcos lies. And this is where Henck lacks lustre : what if Subcommander Marcos isnt Guillen Vicente ? Is this even relevant ? Who or what is Marcos? Taking Hencks point of view of the subcommander as that which he symbolizes , then his symbolism rests on being Subcommander Marcos and not Rafael Sebastian Guillen Vicente. In my own work with the Zapatista movement, when I was part of the

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caravan during the Other Campaign, a sense of mystery always surrounded Marcos. People were always questioning whether this was the real Marcos ; the one they had seen before had blue eyes, pale skin, was taller, bigger. What I came to realise was that he was a mask with a voice and with a pipe. Does it really matter who is behind that mask ? This is a question Henck fails to ask. This work is exhaustive and full of detail. Henck provides some interesting insights into Rafaels personal life and upbringing, collating interviews with former teachers and family members, which combine to provide a sense of early intellectual inuences. Perhaps of most importance is his contribution to the link between Rafael and Che Guevara, one of the gures on which Marcos based himself. But this section ends in a fogged account of what happened to Rafael in the three years after leaving university and immersing himself in Chiapas. It is this unquestioning and uncritical reliance on facts and gures that troubled me. There are entire sections of the book attributed to a single set of authors (Oppenheimer, or De La Grange and Rico) which are digested and given to the reader as concrete facts. This simply stresses the lack of a critical standpoint. Crucially, this biography intends to reveal Marcos becoming ; his transition from Nicolas Guillen Vicente to Subcomandante Marcos. I am not sure how far this can be done without a critique of certain crucial events and discourses. This is not only because Marcos has intentionally controlled the media and what is written about him, but perhaps more importantly, because a biography should engage with, and deconstruct Marcos. Clearly, revolutions and their leaders make up a vast and rich area of analysis. This biography adds albeit indirectly to discussions about the ways in which the Zapatista movement has achieved and devised a new way of doing politics. Moreover, it serves to accentuate the role that Subcommander Marcos has had (placing him) as its leader. Although in his own words, Marcos is not a revolutionary leader but simply a spokesperson, Nick Hencks biography illustrates the importance of considering Marcos as a central gure in the transformation of the Zapatista movement. However, it fails to engage beyond a description of events ; it fails to critique, to contrast and to really understand the Zapatista movement and its most mythical gure : Subcomandante Marcos. Goldsmiths, University of London
YAEL GERSON UGALDE

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08005026

Lynn Stephen, Transborder Lives : Indigenous Oaxacans in Mexico, California and Oregon (Durham, NC, and London : Duke University Press, 2007), pp. xxii+375, 57.00, 13.99 pb. As migration pushes ever deeper into southern Mexico, growing numbers of persons and communities are becoming inextricably tied, through a process of accelerated migration, to numerous parts of the United States. In Transborder Lives, Lynn Stephen oers a detailed and imminently readable ethnographic account of Mixtec and Zapotec migrants in their home towns in Oaxaca, and in California and Oregon destination sites in the United States. Some residents of the communities she examines participated in the Bracero programme (194264), but migration massied from the mid-1980s onward and has become a regular feature of transborder lives of thousands of Mixtecos and Zapotecos. Stephen prefers the term transborder to binational or even transnational because she considers the

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borders that migrants negotiate to be class, ethnic, cultural and linguistic in nature, as well as politico-territorial. Stephen organises the book around two Oaxacan communities: the well-known weaving town of Teotitlan del Valle, located in the central valley region ; and the Mixtec town of San Agustn Atenango, situated between Huajuapan de Leon and Santiago Juxtlahuaca in the Mixteca Baja, several hours drive from the state capital. The primary destination sites discussed are southern California communities of Santa Ana and Oxnard in the case of Teotitlan, and Woodburn, Oregon for San Agustn. But this is too simple, because migrants originating from these towns or tied to them are or have been involved with a large number of Mexican and US destinations, and the breadth and nature of those involvements have changed over the course of the last century. The complexity of the movements and relationships is daunting, but Stephen does a good job of disentangling them through time and space, and relating them to social, economic and political developments from the Mexican Revolution to the Bracero programme to NAFTA and beyond. In her view both Teotitlan and San Agustn are multisited communities for which scholars need produce multisited histories (p. 66). Work, gender, racial and ethnic categorisation, grassroots organising and even the use of advanced communications media come in for detailed analysis in separate chapters. It is notable that Teotitlan Zapotecs migrate primarily to urban areas, where some have developed successful small business careers ; while San Agustn Mixtecs historically fullled the role of a weak, unorganised and highly exploitable indigenous agricultural proletariat both in Mexico and in the United States. Stephen dedicates a great deal more coverage to the Mixtecs than the Zapotecs, understandable given that she has written extensively about Teotitlan over the course of several decades. But Mixtec farm workers are also close at hand Stephen resides in Oregon and have developed and participated in a broad range of organisations variously dedicated to improving the lives of women, organising migrant farm workers, raising money for public works in the home community and promoting the human rights of indigenous persons both in Mexico and the United States. Stephen thinks that the concept of meshworks , which refers (roughly) to networks of networks, is useful for thinking about the ways that migrant individuals and groups become linked in multiple, complex, generally exible, and sometimes transitory ways across time and space. Wisely, she lets her informants carry a great deal of the narrative through often detailed, rst-person accounts of their histories and experiences of life in the home community, the journey north, work experience, gender relations, ethnic discrimination, and even the appropriation of the New Media, such as the Internet, to sell weavings, teach outsiders about local history and mount campaigns against human rights violations. She provides precise discussion of migration law, discourse and practice in the United States and their meaning for migrants. For instance, Stephen notes how a signicant percent of Mixtec settled in Woodburn reside in households composed of members with dierent ocial migration statuses : citizen, resident and undocumented, among others. A chapter on Surveillance and Invisibility in the Lives of Indigenous Farmworkers in Oregon elaborates on the transborder concept by showing through interviews how even those who completed a traumatic but successful undocumented crossing of the territorial divide between Mexico and the United States remain under surveillance by labour recruiters, plant managers and others, and how

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that sense of surveillance becomes internalised and then refracted in minimalist behaviours through which migrants seek to remain invisible. They eschew confrontations and make few or no demands on employers and others, in the course of which they inadvertently give up many of their basic human rights and contribute to the preservation of a status quo super exploitation. Unfortunately, Stephen has no more to say on the open border/closed border or something-in-between dilemma that haunts the politics of US migration discourse beyond the vague suggestion that The politics of visibility and invisibility, of surveillance and security, have to be made exible and transparent so that the complex reality of the global economy in the United States can be approached at a human level (p. 177). In her defence, no one else has done much better. Whether transborder lives comes to be adopted as an appropriate replacement for, say, transnational migrant circuits or transnational communities , remains to be seen. Expanding the idea of border to embrace cultural, linguistic and psychological divides, among others, simultaneously expands the range of those who might t under the concepts umbrella. Dont we all live transborder lives at some times and in some ways ? Stephen might or might not agree. In either case she has produced a ne-grained ethnographic account of the complex world of indigenous Mexicans spread across two countries, and an analysis of the ways they absorb, exercise, transform, exchange and transmit ideas and practices within and across dierent borders. Transborder Lives is a bold attempt to recongure the study of Mexican migrants, and it is a good example of what Stephen refers to in an epilogue as collaborative activist ethnography. Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla
LEIGH BINFORD

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

doi:10.1017/S0022216X08005038

Judith Adler Hellman, The World of Mexican Migrants : The Rock and the Hard Place (London and New York, NY: The New Press, 2008), pp. xxiv+256, $25.95, hb. Judith Adler Hellmans new book is a wonderful addition to her previous work including her bestseller Mexican Lives (also published by the New Press). In her newest book, Hellman uses in-depth interviews to document the lives of Mexican migrants in both the US and Mexico. Hellman combines incredible skill, care and compassion to illustrate the challenges, hopes, dreams and realities of the migrants and their families. Their voices ring clear and strong as she develops a critique of US migration policy and develops the narrow space within which Mexican migrants must exist, a space that is characterised by diculties, barriers, bigotry, mistrust and misunderstanding ; these are people caught between the rock and the hard place as Hellman describes it. Hellmans book includes an introduction, four sections and a conclusion. The bulk of her discussion is organised into four sections that follow Mexican migrants from their homes and home towns to their destinations and futures. An introduction reviews the history of Mexican migration to the US and some of the theories used by social scientists to explain the migration process. Migration from Mexico to the US is not new, yet, its history is often overlooked, thus, Hellmans discussion is critical to understanding the contemporary processes and challenges. The introduction ends with an important section that Hellman titles The Big Questions .

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In this section, Hellman enumerates the issues that she addresses ; but as importantly, these are questions the reader must confront and ponder. Not only are we challenged to explore why Mexicans are in the US and as she points out, it is not all about economics ; we are challenged to consider what migration means for those Mexicans who are left in rural communities in Mexico as well as the future for Mexicans who are in the US. In Part I: The Rock, Hellman documents life in Mexican sending households and communities. She introduces us to migrants, their families and the decisions they must make. She explores motivations for moving and notes that not all migrants are looking for work. Her discussions with Marta (chapter four) remind us that women migrate to escape the abuse (physical and verbal) that often characterises their lives. Part II: The Journey, follows the migrants as they cross the US border. We learn that the process of border crossing has changed becoming more dangerous and dicult even as its cat and mouse qualities continue ; see chapter eight and Angel who recounts his trips from Morelos to the US. Part III: The Hard Place, documents the experiences of Mexican migrants who made it to the US, but as the example of Julio reminds us, not everyone succeeds. Julios experiences, including his brutal arrest and later his return to Puebla, contrast with the experiences of Manuel, who runs a successful shipping business. But life isnt black and white, and the nal chapter in Hellmans book documents Patricia who came to New York from Puebla and has encountered both the best and worst of the migrant experience. Hellmans conclusion reframes her discussion in terms of migration theory. She examines the motivations for migration and emphasises that while economics drive a good deal of cross-border movement (in other words the search for living wages, etc.). Other factors motivate as well, including social connections and social changes. Hellman also shows how the outcomes of movement are linked to the strong social networks that exist among Mexicans who move between Mexico and the US. Finally, she turns to the present and future and asks what might be done to deal with migration, particularly in light of September 11, 2001 and the collapse of the Bush/ Fox initiatives to manage Mexican-US migration. While the proposals failed to gain any traction and are now instead replaced with increasing militarisation of the border, Hellman notes the administrations goals would have reinforced the image that undocumented peoples in the US are criminal (p. 229). Hellmans book is a timely and important contribution to the discussion of Mexican-US migration. Her writing is engaging, and her ability to weave the lives of migrants into a moving narrative is profound. Few if any writers are able to make the world of others come to life in so rich and complete a style in fact, for me, Hellmans writing and this book stand clearly with Stud Terkels works which continue to document the American experience. For the novice who wants to understand Mexican-US migration, this is one of the best books available. For the scholar of migration, Hellmans work is an important addition that must be read. Students will gain a great deal from reading The World of Mexican Migrants , but as importantly and maybe more importantly, Hellmans work is critical for policy makers who continue to demonise Mexican migrants and avoid thinking about and confronting the big questions that Hellman poses. The Ohio State University
J E F F R E Y H. C O H E N

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doi:10.1017/S0022216X0800504X

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

Wayne Cornelius, David Fitzgerald and Pedro Lewin Fischer (eds.), Mayan Journeys : The New Migration from Yucatan to the United States (La Jolla, CA: University of California San Diego, 2008), pp. xi+257, 16.95, pb. Southeast Mexico is undergoing rapid transformation as a result of international migration, yet little is known about this regions international migration processes or the social changes produced by migration. As the ow of migrants from Mexico to the United States continues to grow, so too do the misconceptions about many aspects of migrant behaviour, including how migrants reach the decision to migrate, the impact of US immigration policies on migrants, and the inuence of ethnicity on migrants, among others. The mutability of migration ows are also poorly understood, especially in cases of new migrant sending communities and nascent immigrant populations, as is the case of indigenous migration from the state of Yucatan. This edited collection, Mayan Journeys: The New Migration from Yucatan to the United States, pays much-needed attention to this timely and important topic. The book will appeal to students of migration and economics generally, and particularly to those interested in immigration policy, migration and economic development, indigenous migration, and migration and social networks. Furthermore, the collection will hopefully capture the attention of policy makers in Mexico and the US who wish to have a deeper understanding of the pressing issues faced by communities with prominent migrant populations. But perhaps its most salient contribution is in its methodology. The study involved a bi-national eld research team that interviewed active migrants and non-migrants; data on absent migrants were collected from family members. Data collection involved survey research, semi-structured interviews, in depth interviews with key informants, and ethnographic observations. With the exception of the editors, the contributors are all students, but the reader would not know that if that information had not been revealed in the preface. Each chapter is a robust, stand-alone study of a particular topic related to Yucatecan migration. Taken as a whole, the book provides a comprehensive, ethnographic view on the emergence and growth of a transnational community. The rst chapter introduces Yucatan as an emerging migrant-sending region, where international migration is supplanting regional migration. International migration drivers are discussed and compared to other Mexican migrant-sending regions. The second chapter describes in detail the community of Tunkas, the focus of the book. This rural Yucatec Maya community is experiencing its rst generation of migration, yet already migration to el norte is the dening characteristic of the towns social and economic life (p. 30). An economic history of Tunkas reveals that the town enjoyed economic growth and stability during the earlier part of the last century, a situation which discouraged people from participating in international migration. The origins of Tunkaseno migration coincide with a lack of adequately paid local job opportunities and a series of hurricanes that have destroyed local agriculture. By the 1990s, a culture of migration had been established. Today, 38 % of households have some experience with out migration (p. 44). Following these introductory chapters, the discussion shifts to the contemporary migration process in Tunkas (chapter three), and the interface between internal and international migration (chapter four). Tunkaseno migrants, typically married males in their 30s, arrive at their US destinations via transnational social networks which

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are the key to border crossing and coping with life in the United States (p. 68). Despite the agricultural roots of Tunkasenos, the majority of migrants are employed in non-agricultural jobs, principally in the service sector. Internal migration to Cancun and surrounds are described as training schools for international migrants. The authors argue that migrants learn how to successfully navigate an environment that is comparable to the United States in many ways (p. 82), including learning how to manage money and developing language skills. The researchers then follow the migrants to the United States where the impacts of US immigration policies on migration behaviour are examined (chapter ve) and Tunkaseno settlement in the US is explored (chapter six). The evidence from Tunkaseno migration to the US shows that stepped-up border en forcement, worksite enforcement, and awareness of the physical dangers of border crossing are ineective measures against illegal immigration. Instead, these obstacles have encouraged longer stays in the US. Furthermore, the number of Tunkaseno settlers is growing, especially as female migration and whole-family migration intensies. Despite the many attractions that international migration holds, a large sector of the population of Tunkas has never migrated and has no intention of doing so. Stay at-homes (chapter seven) cite family ties and the social costs of adaptation as the main reasons why migration is not an option. Local economic development has not beneted from migration (chapter eight). Households that receive remittances use them primarily to cover household expenses. The remaining chapters address various topics : ethnicity, religion, health and political participation (chapters nine to twelve). The recentness of Tunkaseno emi gration makes it dicult to say much about these topics, other than to narrate a descriptive account of each subject. The chapters are more ethnographic snapshots of Tunkas than analytical explanations about complex issues. An exception lies with the discussion on the creation of political binationals and Tunkaseno migrants interest in US naturalisation (chapter twelve), where an elegant logistic regression analysis helps the authors predict migrants political views. Despite the methodological strengths already described, the study is lacking in one major area. Few contributors include a gendered view on the migration process (although chapters three and six do devote small sections to this topic). Gender is taken into account as an add in rather than a central organising principle in migrants decision-making behaviour. However, Yucatec Maya gender ideology can play a decisive role in economic behaviour, including migration (see Bever 2002, A Socioeconomic Prole of Yucatec Maya Families in Migrating and Non-migrating Households. Research in Economic Anthropology, vol. 21, pp. 187220). The editors include a very useful appendix (the survey questionnaire), though additional appendices would have been helpful, such as a list of acronyms, denition of terms, and an explanation of statistical analyses employed. Since this book is the second in a series of volumes on Mexican migration, inclusion of these materials would have strengthened the comparability of the studies. These are minor shortcomings, however, and overall it is exciting to see such an opportune and comprehensive volume about the changing face of Mexican migrants. University of Nevada, Reno
SANDRA WEINSTEIN BEVER

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doi:10.1017/S0022216X08005051

J. Lat. Amer. Stud. 40 (2008).

Susan Bibler Coutin, Nations of Emigrants : Shifting Boundaries of Citizenship in El Salvador and the United States (Ithaca, NY : Cornell University Press, 2007), pp. xvi+263, $59.95, $19.95 pb ; 30.50, 9.95 pb. Both El Salvador and the United States are nations of emigrants, as Susan Coutin notes in her new book, although the consequences of this emigrant orientation have been and are very dierent. The United States receives, not always willingly, what El Salvador and other countries expel. She notes how the term nations of emigrants inverts the more common nation of immigrants : To be a nation of immigrants is to be capable of consuming and transforming alien others, producing generic citizens while nations of emigrants highlights both the interconnectedness of nations and that fact that immigrants come from somewhere else (pp. 34). In the case under review, that interconnectedness assumes a variety of historical and contemporary forms : remittances, political violence, deportation and legislative histories, all of which are in some respects facets of one another (p. 14). Even when dealing with highly technical legal issues, Coutin never loses sight of the fact that the movement of people across national borders involves the hopes and dreams and the future possibilities and past (and present) tragedies of esh-and-blood people. Thus she chronicles the complex history of ight, settlement and, in some cases, forced return, weaving in accounts of executive orders, legislative strategies, external and internal pressures and bureaucratic action (and inaction) that contributed to the transformation of Salvadoran emigrants/refugees from undesirables and inadmissible aliens during the US-nanced Salvadoran civil war (roughly 198092) to deserving immigrants or, in the words of one immigration ocial cited by the author, people we knew (p. 27). Even as Salvadorans were granted Temporary Protected Status and eventually included within the US body politic through the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act, they remained vulnerable to deportation for even minor legal trespasses. Coutin devotes considerable attention to disentangling the surface appearances of law from the underlying realities. She notes how the proper path of law , which intends a strict separation of the permissible from the impermissible elides the fact that there is something lawful within illegality, and that the illegal can exist within law . Thus the essential legality and deservingness that law eventually acknowledged was part of Central American asylum seekers when they were still being denounced as illegal immigrants (p. 71). A moving chapter on the retornados expelled from the United States for (often minor violations) evidences the limits of inclusion. Many retornados arrived in the United States at young ages, yet found themselves involuntarily repatriated to another society with which they have little or no familiarity. In some cases they may not even speak the language. Toward the books end, Coutin discusses recent changes in immigration policy toward Salvadorans and regarding migrants seen by some as potential terrorists in the wake of September 11, or as a needed low-wage working class. Two chapters examine emigration from the ocial and nonocial Salvadoran perspective. Since 2001, when the government dollarised through a xed exchange rate with the colon, the nations economy has been kept aoat by several billion dollars in annual remittances generated from Salvadorans dwelling outside the country, mainly in the United States. Coutin details the numbers-game involved in counting remittances, and discusses government eorts to maintain and strengthen relationships with the emigrant community, commonly referred to as Department

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Fifteen . She observes that in El Salvador and elsewhere remittances are considered untainted by the market, pure prot _ (p. 132), but she might also have noted that only by foregoing basic desires (which is to say residing in poverty US-style) are some US-dwelling Salvadorans able to remit enough money, given their low earning power, to lift stay-at-home family members out of an even more debilitating Salvadoran-style poverty. In any case, Coutins informants are probably correct in their assessment that the economy has become remittance dependent and that maintaining the current high level of remittances depends on a continuous process of new emigration, what some of her interviewees referred to as a politics of expulsion (p. 142). Discussions of violence make repeated appearances in this book, whether the violence of the long civil war that most people now admit contributed to a massication of emigration, that experienced by migrants during the journey north, postwar criminal violence or the violence exercised by the state through the new penology which resembles state-sponsored repression in that each justies extreme measures by placing certain individuals outside the bounds of the polity (p. 171). Emigrants are often held responsible by the press, government and the public for high post-war levels of violence, either as hardened criminal retornados, or as parents whose absence contributes to family disintegration and out-of-control gang banging youth. In an eort both to detail specicities and demonstrate connections, Coutin tacks from one theme to another, drawing liberally on a range of written sources and interviews conducted in the United States and El Salvador with documented and undocumented migrants, retornados, immigration lawyers, non-governmental organisations, activists, ocials from both governments and others. The writing is crisp and the author keeps the narrative moving along, even through lengthy technical passages devoted to immigration law and its enactment. She has a particular knack for turning conventional wisdom on its head, as in her discussions of the unlawful within the law, the legal in the illegal, the crime in politics and the emigrants presence in their absence. She also demonstrates the value of analysing both El Salvador and the United States as nations of emigrants mutually bound through complex transnational relationships. Although the book focuses narrowly on El Salvador and the United States, many of Coutins conclusions have broad relevance for Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua and other countries in Latin America and elsewhere. Nations of Emigrants will be of interest to students of migration, transnationalism, citizenship studies and violence studies, and useful for a range of graduate and advanced undergraduate courses in Anthropology, Sociology, History, Political Science and Law, among others. Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla
LEIGH BINFORD