Winner of the 2019 Bolton-Johnson Prize from the Conference on Latin American History This is a book about the links between politics and literacy, and about how radical ideas spread in a world without printing presses. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Spanish colonial governments tried to keep revolution out of their provinces. But, as Cristina Soriano shows, hand-copied samizdat materials from the Caribbean flooded the cities and ports of Venezuela, hundreds of foreigners shared news of the French and Haitian revolutions with locals, and Venezuelans of diverse social backgrounds met to read hard-to-come-by texts and to discuss the ideas they expounded. These networks efficiently spread antimonarchical propaganda and abolitionist and egalitarian ideas, allowing Venezuelans to participate in an incipient yet vibrant public sphere and to contemplate new political scenarios. This book offers an in-depth analysis of one of the crucial processes that allowed Venezuela to become one of the first regions in Spanish America to declare independence from Iberia and turn into an influential force for South American independence.

This is a book about the links between politics and literacy, and about how radical ideas spread in a world without printing presses. In the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, Spanish colonial governments tried to keep revolution out of their provinces. But, as Cristina Soriano shows, hand-copied samizdat materials from the Caribbean flooded the cities and ports of Venezuela, hundreds of foreigners shared news of the French and Haitian revolutions with locals, and Venezuelans of diverse social backgrounds met to read hard-to-come-by texts and to discuss the ideas they expounded. These networks efficiently spread antimonarchical propaganda and abolitionist and egalitarian ideas, allowing Venezuelans to participate in an incipient yet vibrant public sphere and to contemplate new political scenarios. This book offers an in-depth analysis of one of the crucial processes that allowed Venezuela to become one of the first regions in Spanish America to declare independence from Iberia and turn into an influential force for South American independence.

This new edition argues that, in both Mao and Deng periods, China has evolved in ways quite different from the Soviet model and from other developing countries. Like its predecessor, the book's approach is interdisciplinary and comparative. Professor Blecher analyzes China by introducing appropriate theories and concepts from historical and political sociology, economic development and political science. He explores China from two comparative perspectives: developing countries (including the newly industrializing countries of East Asia) and historical state socialist regimes. The book's chapters cover: imperial collapse, republican failure and communist triumph; a chronological overview since 1949; the state and politics; socialism and society; rural political economy; urban political economy; China and the Pacific Rim; the crisis of reform; and the future of Chinese economic development and politics. From PETRA: Blecher's new edition will revise and update the first, adding a new section on international economic factors to the political economy chapters - to include the WTO, gloablization, foreign investment etc. It will address new policy problems such as the spread of AIDS in China and will look at Hong Kong and Macau's return, and at the relationship with Taiwan. The Chinese diaspora is also covered.

In the wake of American independence, it was clear that the new United States required novel political forms. Less obvious but no less revolutionary was the idea that the American people needed a new understanding of the self. Sensibility was a cultural m

"Per the UK publisher William Collins's promotional copy: "There is a quarter of this planet which is often forgotten in the histories that are told in the West. This quarter is an oceanic one, pulsating with winds and waves, tides and coastlines, islands and beaches. The Indian and Pacific Oceans constitute that forgotten quarter, brought together here for the first time in a sustained work of history." More specifically, Sivasundaram's aim in this book is to revisit the Age of Revolutions and Empire from the perspective of the Global South. Waves Across the South ranges from the Arabian Sea across the Indian Ocean to the Bay of Bengal, and onward to the South Pacific and Australia's Tasman Sea. As the Western empires (Dutch, French, but especially British) reached across these vast regions, echoes of the European revolutions rippled through them and encountered a host of indigenous political developments. Sivasundaram also opens the door to new and necessary conversations about environmental history in addition to the consequences of historical violence, the extraction of resources, and the indigenous futures that Western imperialism cut short"--

"The prologue gallery provides a context within which to understand the images produced after the revolution. Included in the prologue are examples of the iconic photographs made by important photographers of the revolution s military struggle, such as Korda and Osvaldo Salas. These images reflect the heroic personalities of the revolution and establish a baseline from which three generational shifts in the conception and uses of photography can be traced.".