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Why do some countries progress while others stagnate? Why does adversity strengthen some countries and weaken others? Indeed, in this era of unprecedented movement of people, goods, and ideas, just what constitutes a nation-state? Forrest Colburn and Arturo Cruz suggest how fundamental these questions are through an exploration of the evolution of Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica over the last quarter of a century, a period of intriguing, often confounding, paradoxes in Central America's development.

Offering an elegant defense of empiricism, Colburn and Cruz explore the roles of geography and political choice in constructing nations and states. Countries are shown to be unique: there are a daunting number of variables. There is causality, but not the kind that can be revealed in the laboratory or on the blackboard. Liberalism—today defined as democracy and unfettered markets—may be in vogue, but it has no inherent determinants. Democracy and market economies, when welded to the messy realities of individual countries, are compatible with many different outcomes. The world is more pluralistic in both causes and effects than either academic theories or political rhetoric suggest.

On a wave of revolutionary upheaval in the early twenty-first century, Evo Morales was swept into state power as Bolivia’s first Indigenous president with a mandate to radically transform the country. The ensuing period, known simply as “el proceso de cambio” (the process of change), has been a tension-filled and contradictory process involving progressive transformations, ambiguous continuities, and outright revolutionary failures. Importantly, the contradictions have been just as much ideological as they are material.  

By examining and illuminating the contrasting logics underlying opposing theories of revolutionary change, Visions of Transformation provides an analytical framework through which to understand and interpret the central conflicts and contradictions of Bolivia under Evo Morales and the Movimiento al Socialismo.

Based on nearly two years of immersive fieldwork, Visions of Transformation explores the relation between theoretical production and political practice. Through the contrasting perspectives of hegemony and plurinationality, the book analyzes three specific conjunctural moments—a proposed highway through the TIPNIS, a conflict over representation of the highland Indigenous movement organization CONAMAQ, and the struggle for Indigenous autonomy—to shed light on the primary economic, social, political, and theoretical tensions at the heart of Bolivia’s proceso de cambio.

Analyzing the visual syntax and display rhetoric applied in newspaper photos, national historical albums, and museum exhibitions, Noa Hazan shows that although racial thought was and still is verbally suppressed in Israel, it is vividly present in its nonverbal official and public visual sphere. The racist perspective of newspaper editors, book publishers, photographers, and museum curators were morally justified in its time by such patronizing ideals as realistic news coverage or the salvation of Jewish heritage assets. Although their perspectives played a dominant role in establishing a visual syntax of race in Israel, they were not seen as racially discriminating at the time. The racist motifs and actions are revealed here by colligating multiple cases into a coherent narrative in retrospect. 

This book points to a direct influence of the anti-Semitic discourse in Europe toward Mizrahim in Israel, highlighting the shared visual stereotypes used in both Europe and the fledgling state of Israel. Engraved in their body, these cultural traits were depicted and understood as racial-biological qualities and were visually manipulated to silo Ashkenazim and Mizrahim in Israel as distinct racial types. 

Between 1926 and 1929, thousands of Mexicans fought and died in an attempt to overthrow the government of their country. They were the Cristeros, so called because of their battle cry, ¡Viva Cristo Rey!—Long Live Christ the King! The Cristero rebellion and the church-state conflict remain one of the most controversial subjects in Mexican history, and much of the writing on it is emotional polemic. David C. Bailey, basing his study on the most important published and unpublished sources available, strikes a balance between objective reporting and analysis. This book depicts a national calamity in which sincere people followed their convictions to often tragic ends.

The Cristero rebellion climaxed a century of animosity between the Catholic church and the Mexican state, and this background is briefly summarized here. With the coming of the 1910 revolution the hostility intensified. The revolutionists sought to impose severe limitations on the Church, and Catholic anti-revolutionary militancy grew apace. When the government in 1926 decreed strict enforcement of anticlerical legislation, matters reached a crisis. Church authorities suspended public worship throughout Mexico, and Catholics in various parts of the country rose up in arms. There followed almost three years of indecisive guerrilla warfare marked by brutal excesses on both sides. Bailey describes the armed struggle in broad outline but concentrates on the political and diplomatic maneuvering that ultimately decided the issue.

A de facto settlement was brought about in 1929, based on the government’s pledge to allow the Church to perform its spiritual offices under its own internal discipline. The pact was arranged mainly through the intercession of U.S. Ambassador Dwight Morrow. His role in the conflict, as well as that of other Americans who decisively influenced the course of events, receives detailed attention in the study. The position of the Vatican during the conflict and its role in the settlement are also examined in detail.

With the 1929 settlement the clergy returned to the churches, whereupon the Cristeros lost public support and the rebellion collapsed. The spirit of the settlement soon evaporated, more strife followed, and only after another decade did permanent religious peace come to Mexico.

2007 — LASA Peru Flora Tristán Book Prize from the Peru Section – Latin American Studies Association

Voices from the Global Margin looks behind the generalities of debates about globalization to explore the personal impact of global forces on the Peruvian poor. In this highly readable ethnography, William Mitchell draws on the narratives of people he has known for forty years, offering deep insight into how they have coped with extreme poverty and rapid population growth—and their creation of new lives and customs in the process. In their own passionate words they describe their struggles to make ends meet, many abandoning rural homes for marginal wages in Lima and the United States. They chronicle their terror during the Shining Path guerrilla war and the government's violent military response. Mitchell's long experience as an anthropologist living with the people he writes about allows him to put the stories in context, helping readers understand the impact of the larger world on individuals and their communities. His book reckons up the human costs of the global economy, urging us to work toward a more just world.