Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History: Essays from the North (American Encounters/Global Interactions) - Hardcover

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9780822327790: Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History: Essays from the North (American Encounters/Global Interactions)

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0822327791 ISBN 13: 9780822327790

Publisher: Duke University Press, 2002

Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History is a collection that embraces a new social and cultural history of Latin America that is not divorced from politics and other arenas of power. True to the intellectual vision of Brazilian historian Emilia Viotti da Costa, one of Latin America's most distinguished scholars, the contributors actively revisit the political-as both a theme of historical analysis and a stance for historical practice-to investigate the ways in which power, agency, and Latin American identity have been transformed over the past few decades. Taking careful stock of the state of historical writing on Latin America, the volume delineates current historiographical frontiers and suggests a series of new approaches that focus on several pivotal themes: the construction of historical narratives and memory; the articulation of class, race, gender, sexuality, and generation; and the historian's involvement in the making of history. Although the book represents a view of the Latin American political that comes primarily from the North, the influence of Viotti da Costa powerfully marks the contributors' engagement with Latin America's past. Featuring a keynote essay by Viotti da Costa herself, the volume's lively North-South encounter embodies incipient trends of hemispheric intellectual convergence. Contributors. Jeffrey L. Gould, Greg Grandin, Daniel James, Gilbert M. Joseph, Thomas Miller Klubock, Mary Ann Mahony, Florencia E. Mallon, Diana Paton, Steve J. Stern, Heidi Tinsman, Emilia Viotti da Costa, Barbara Weinstein

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Review:

"Cutting edge in its approaches, vibrant in its debates, and relevant in its concerns to both current historiography and current politics, this book should be required reading for all serious students and scholars of Latin America."--Peter Winn, author of Americas: The Changing Face of Latin America and the Caribbean

"The magnificence of this volume lies in Viotti da Costa's plea for political engagement and intellectual integrity, as well as in the superb scholarship that rises to her challenge. This book will inspire a new generation of scholars and teachers of Latin American history to reengage their work and lives in the new politics and political issues bubbling up around the edges of the neoliberal order of global capitalism."--Brooke Larson, author of Cochabamba, 1550-1900: Colonialism and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia

Synopsis:

At an unsettled moment in the academy, when there are seemingly few inspirational paradigms for connecting scholarship to action, "Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History" offers a heady mixture of reflexive theoretical essays and interpretative case studies that embrace the challenge of writing a social and cultural history of Latin America that is not divorced from politics and broader arenas of power.Responding both to an exaggerated positivism that marginalises culture and postmodernist approaches that defang the political to fetishise "experience," "mentality," and "identity," the contributors integrate material and cultural approaches in a new political and cultural history of Latin America. True to the intellectual vision of Brazilian historian Emilia Viotti da Costa, one of Latin America's most distinguished scholars (to whom the volume is dedicated), the contributors seek to move the field beyond the parallel pitfalls of material and cultural reductionism in search of a dialectics that will advance both a new historiography and new political strategies.The volume takes careful stock of the state of historical writing on Latin America.It delineates current historiographical frontiers and suggests a series of new approaches, focusing on several pivotal themes: the construction of historical narratives and memory; the articulation of class, race, gender, sexuality, and generation; and the historian's involvement in the making of history.

Although the book represents a view of the Latin American political that comes primarily from the North, the influence of Viotta da Costa powerfully marks the contributors' engagement with Latin America's past. Featuring a keynote essay by Viotti da Costa herself, the volume embodies a lively North-South encounter that points up incipient trends of hemispheric intellectual convergence. Contributors include Jeffrey L. Gould, Greg Grandin, Daniel James, Gilbert M. Joseph, Thomas Miller Klubock, Mary Ann Mahoney, Florencia E. Mallon, Diana Paton, Steve J. Stern, Heidi Tinsman, Emilia Viotti da Costa, and Barbara Weinstein.

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