Extend and enrich your social studies curriculum With these six softbound texts, ideal for low-level readers, teachers can custom-design a course on world cultures. Texts focus on Asia and the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the United States and Canada, Latin America, and Russia and the Former Soviet Republics. Each text explores a single region and offers a rich mix of topics, including: Geography and Climate, History, Major Inventions, Family and Life Patterns, Economics, Expression Through the Arts and Entertainment, and Current World Issues. The Teacher's Guide includes Chapter-by-chapter suggestions for classroom instruction Scope and sequence chart Answers to textbook questions and Blackline Masters activities Suggestions for additional activities to extend each lesson Blackline Masters are included in each text with activities to reinforce information presented in the texts. Reading Level: 3-4 Interest Level: 8-12

Cultural tourism has become an important source of revenue for Latin American countries, especially in the Andes and Meso-America. Tourists go there looking for authentic cultures and artefacts and interact directly with indigenous people. Cultural tourism therefore takes place in close engagement with local societies. This book analyse the effects of cultural tourism and the processes of change it provokes in local societies. It analyses the intricacies of informal markets, the consequences of enforcing tourist policies, the varied encounters of foreign tourists with local populations, and the images and identities that result from the development of tourism. The contributors convincingly show that the tourist experience and the reactions to tourist activities can only be understood if analysed from within local contexts. Contributors: Michiel Baud, Annelou Ypeij, Lisa Breglia, Quetzil E. Castañeda, Ben Feinberg, Carla Guerrón Montero, Walter E. Little, Keely B. Maxwell, Lynn A. Meisch, Zoila S. Mendoza, Alan Middleton, Beatrice Simon, Griet Steel, Gabriela Vargas-Cetina. “Tourism in Latin America – especially the sort of cultural tourism that plays to desires for authentic experiences – has become a key foreigner currency earner for many countries. This important volume examines the impact of tourism across the region, providing a rich survey of the range of experiences and teasing out the theoretical implications. From the almost surreal Mi Pueblito theme park in Panama to mushroom-hunting tourists in Oaxaca to the eco-trail leading to Machu Pichu, these chapters present compelling cases that speak to identity formation, nationalism, and economic impacts. As the contributors show, benefits are differentially accrued to various actors – and often not to the communities that tourists come to see. Yet, the contributors also make it clear that in struggles over ownership, authenticity, and political representation, local communities actively shape the contours and meanings of tourism, at times successfully leveraging cultural capital into economic gains.” Edward F. Fischer, Director Center for Latin American Studies, Vanderbilt University

A survey of contemporary Latin American popular culture, covering topics that range from music and film to popular festivals and fashion. Like no other volume of its kind, Pop Culture Latin America! captures the breadth and vitality of pop culture in Central and South America and the Caribbean, exploring both familiar and lesser-known aspects of its unique melange of art, entertainment, spirituality, and celebrations. Written by contributors who are scholars and specialists in the cultures and languages of Latin America, the book focuses on the historical, social, and political forces that have shaped Latino culture since 1945, particularly in the last two decades. Separate chapters cover music, popular cinema, mass media, theater and performance, literature, cultural heroes, religions and festivals, social movements and politics, the visual arts and architecture, sports and leisure, travel and tourism, and language.

This book relies on a global studies (interdisciplinary) paradigm to study the basic transitions through which Latin America has gone over the last millennium. The global studies approach relies on an understanding of the distinct transitions through which cultures of Latin America have passed as they have adapted to global economic and political forces since the Sixteenth Century. Unlike dependency or world systems theories, a global studies paradigm does not accept the idea that cultures and peoples are passive to globalization or capitalism. This work shows that Latin American institutions can only be understood as embedded in Latin American culture, which is a product of history and adaptation, and has interacted with quite distinct global systems for the last five centuries. The book presents the case that, until very recently, the economic institutions of Latin America were not capitalistic, but either mercantilist or corporatist. Only since 1985 have Latin American countries adopted capitalism and democracy, and these have not been a failure. While this book stresses political and economic analyses, it also examines the impact of corporatism (state capitalism) on ecosystems, demographics, social systems, and cultural forms. The book is a largely upbeat and positive examination of the new phenomenon of globalization in Latin America.

"From the Foundations in Global Studies series, this text offers students a fresh, comprehensive, multidisciplinary entry point to Latin America. After a brief introduction to the study of Latin America, the early chapters of the book survey the essentials of Latin American history; important historical narratives; and the region's languages, religions, and global connections. Students are guided through the material with relevant maps, resource boxes, and text boxes that support and guide further independent exploration of the topics at hand. The second half of the book features interdisciplinary case studies, each of which focuses on a specific country or sub-region and a particular issue. Each chapter gives a flavor for the cultural distinctiveness of the particular country yet also draws attention to global linkages. Readers will come away from this book with an understanding of the larger historical, political, and cultural frameworks that shaped Latin America as we know it today, and of current issues that have relevance in Latin America and beyond"--