Recasting the Nation in Twentieth-Century Argentina tackles the meaning of "the nation" by looking to the geographical, ideological, and political peripheries of society. What it means to be Argentine has long consumed writers, political leaders, and many others. For almost two centuries prominent figures have defined national values while looking out from the urban centers of the country and above all Buenos Aires. They have described the nation in terms of urban experience and, secondarily, by surrounding frontiers; they have focused on the country’s European heritage and advanced an entangled vision of race and space. The chapters in this book take a dynamic new approach. While scholars and political leaders have routinely ignored the country’s many peripheries, the Argentine nation cannot be reasonably understood without them. Those on the margins also defined core tenets of the nation. This volume will be vital reading for those interested in how Latin American societies emerged over the past two centuries and for those curious about how ideas outside of the mainstream come to define national identities.

This book puts two of the most significant Jewish Diaspora communities outside of the U.S. into conversation with one another. At times contributor-pairs directly compare unique aspects of two Jewish histories, politics, or cultures. At other times, they juxtapose. Some chapters focus on literature, poetry, theatre, or sport; others on immigration, antisemitism, or health. Taken together, the essays in Promised Lands North and South offer sparkling insight and new depth on the modern Jewish global experience.

This collection of research from Cuba scholars explores key conflicts, episodes, currents, and tensions that helped shape Cuba as a modern, independent nation. Cuba in the nineteenth century was characterized by social struggle. Slavery, Spanish colonial rule, and racial tension permeated every corner of Cuban life—from urban dwelling to house of charity, from sugarcane field to tobacco vega, from seaport to railway—and furnished a lively spectacle for the privileged foreigner gazing upon Cuba from afar. Chapters discuss topics including slavery, gendered forced labor, indentured labor, agricultural economics, industrial development, newspaper and print culture, and the origins of the "Cuba Threat." The volume links key aspects of Cuba’s history, such as social conflict and economic underdevelopment, to present a detailed analysis of Cuban civil society in the 1800s. Social Struggle and Civil Society in Nineteenth Century Cuba appeals to general readers and scholars in a range of disciplines, including history, women’s studies, economics, architectural preservation, media studies, and literature.

This book examines the enslavement system in nineteenth-century Brazil, demonstrating the strategies that lawyers and plaintiffs used to fight for freedom in court. In nineteenth-century Brazil, countless enslaved and freed women and men appealed to court to claim their right to freedom or that of family members. Taken as a whole, these legal suits create a narrative against the institution of slavery. By analyzing 30 individual cases (1810–1881) from various parts of imperial Brazil, this book demonstrates the intricate strategies of argumentation that lawyers and plaintiffs conceived to prove the right to freedom of the parties involved and to convince the authorities of it. Enslaved persons did not only protest their enslavement through rebellion, flight, refusal to work, and in everyday life but also produced a statement in the legal sphere against enslavement. This intellectual achievement was realized through the cooperation of lawyers and enslaved plaintiffs alike, functioning through stories of injustices, not through theoretical treatises on the right to liberty. While research on abolition in Brazil has concentrated mainly on public discourse, legislative decrees, and protest actions, this book focuses on the discursive space of courts. It gives both an overview of the enslavement system and intricately analyzes the fight for freedom in court. Narratives of Enslavement is the perfect volume for both students and nonspecialist readers and also provides new insights for specialists in this field.

White women who inhabited the West Indies in the eighteenth century fascinated metropolitan observers. In popular prints, novels, and serial publications, these women appeared to stray from "proper" British societal norms. Although many women who lived in the Caribbean island of Jamaica might have fit the model, extant writings from Ann Brodbelt, Sarah Dwarris, Margaret and Mary Cowper, Lady Maria Nugent, and Ann Appleton Storrow show a longing to remain connected with metropolitan society and their loved ones separated by the Atlantic. Sensibility and awareness of metropolitan material culture masked a lack of empathy towards subordinates and opened the white women in these islands to censure. Novels and popular publications portrayed white women in the Caribbean as prone to overconsumption, but these women seem to prize items not for their inherent value. They treasured items most when they came from beloved connections. This colonial interchange forged and preserved bonds with loved ones and comforted the women in the West Indies during their residence in these sugar plantation islands. This book seeks to complicate the stereotype of insensibility and overconsumption that characterized the perception of white women who inhabited the British West Indies in the long eighteenth century. This book will appeal to students and researchers alike who are interested in the social and cultural history of British Jamacia and the British West Indies more generally.

Based on research conducted in archives in six countries, An International History of South America in the Era of Military Rule: Geared for War offers a detailed account of the tensions and fears of war that engulfed South America in the 1970s, when most countries of the region were ruled by military governments. Scholars of contemporary history and international relations, graduate and undergraduate students of Latin American history, and anyone interested in issues of international history will gain from reading this book, which explores the long-standing territorial controversies that underlay international rivalries, the incidence of military thinking in them, and the multifarious effects of the international order of the Cold War in the rise of tensions in South America in the era of military rule. Since war did not break out in South America in the 1970s, the book also stands as a study of the reasons why peace prevailed, even under conditions that seemed conducive to its demise. As a study based on multiarchival research, the book offers an original narrative and analysis of a topic scarcely treated by scholarly literature on the history of South America in the twentieth century, which makes it useful and interesting for audiences in various countries of the region.

This book investigates the diverse ways in which the Portuguese language expanded in Brazil, despite the multilingual landscape that predominated before and after the arrival of the Europeans and the African diaspora. Challenging the assumption that the prevalence of Portuguese was a natural consequence and foregone conclusion of colonisation, the book argues that the language’s expansion was as much a result of state intervention as of individual agency. The growth of the Portuguese language was a tumultuous process that mirrored the power relations and conflicts between Amerindian, European, African, and mestizo actors who shaped, standardised, and promoted the language within and beyond state institutions. Knowing Portuguese became an identification sign of being Brazilian. However, a significant number of languages disappeared along the way, and the book highlights that virtual language homogeneity does not imply social equality. Portuguese’s variants place speakers on different social levels that justify domination and inequality. This research tells the history of a victorious language and other languages that left their mark on Brazilian Portuguese. A Plurilingual History of the Portuguese Language in the Luso-Brazilian Empire is a useful resource for scholars interested in the history and standardisation of languages, Portuguese and Brazilian history, and the impacts of colonisation.