Reviews

Books reviewed:
Sampson Vera Tudela, Colonial Angels: Narratives of Gender and Sprituality in Mexico
Archer, Wars of Independence in Spanish America
Bergad, Slavery and the Demographic and Economic History of Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1720–1888
McFarlane and Posado-Carbó, Independence and Revolution in Spanish America: Perspectives and Problems
Earle, Spain and the Independence of Colombia, 1800–1825
Zimmermann, Judicial Institutions in Nineteenth-Century Latin America
Nugent, Modernity at the Edge of Empire: State, Individual, and Nation in the Northern Peruvian Andes
Chowning, Wealth and Power in Provincial Mexico: Michoacán from the Late Colony ti the Revolution
Benjamin, La Revolució: Mexico's Great Revolution as Memory, Myth, and History
Spenser, The Impossible Triangle: Mexico, Soviet Russia, and the United States in the 1920s
Buve and Weisebron, Procesos de Integración en América Latina: Perspectivas y Experiencias Latinoamericanas y Europeas
Edelman, Peasants Against Globalisation: Rural Social Movements in Costa Rica
Pelupessy and Ruben, Agrarian Policies in Central America
Harvey, The Chiapas Rebellion: The Struggle for Land and Democracy
Hite, When the Romance Ended: Leaders of the Chilean Left
Aguirre and Buffington, Reconstructing Criminality in Latin America
Craske, Women and Politics in Latin America
Beverley, Subalternity and Representation: Arguments in Cultural Theory
Breiner, An Introduction to West Indian Poetry
Goslinga, Caribbean Literature: A Bibliography
San Román, Onetti and Others: Comparative Essays on a Major Figure in Latin American Literature     

The Health of the Rurality: The Encuesta de Folklore and Popular Healing Practices in Tucumán, 1921

This article examines healing practices among the rural inhabitants of Tucumán in the opening quarter of the twentieth century through a reading of the 1921 National Folklore Survey. It argues that popular medical practices, referred to as curanderismos (popular healing), continued into the twentieth century not only as cultural practice of the popular classes but as necessity due to limited investments in public health in the rural regions on the part of the national and provincial government.     

The International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania: successes,challenges, perspectives

The article summarizes the history of the International Commission for the Evaluation of the Crimes of the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Regimes in Lithuania and outlines the work it has accomplished to date. The author reviews the problems and controversies surrounding the Commission’s research into the post-1940 period of Lithuania’s history and describes the clashing perspectives inherent in the starkly different Lithuanian, Jewish, Western and Soviet wartime narratives.     

The Mining Industry and the State: The Politics of Tin Restriction in Bolivia, 1936–1939

In the aftermath of the Chaco War (1932–1935) a strong left nationalist political current emerged in Bolivia which defined the three large mining companies of Patiño, Hochschild and Aramayo as a superstate, controlling both the economy and the politics of the nation to their own advantage. This article challenges that characterisation by examining the way in which the state exercised control over the two largest producers. Unfortunately, the state lacked the technical capacity to use its powers responsibly, preventing the development of a coherent mining policy.     

The “Eloquence” of Robert J. Hawke: United States informer, 1973–79

In the 1970s, the leader of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and future Prime Minister of Australia, Robert J. “Bob” Hawke, was an informer of the United States of America. Using diplomatic cables from official archives, this article shows that Hawke gifted information about the Australian government, the Australian Labor Party and the labour movement, assisting the intelligence gathering efforts of the foreign power. In turn, the relationship influenced the development of Australian policy, including the abandonment of Keynesian economics and embrace of neoliberalism. His discreet relationship — discussed in detail for the first time — was not unusual among elites in the post-war period. However, Hawke was especially entrenched in the practise. This article will also show, through historiography and memoir, that the act of informing by elites began in the 1940s, as the United States was becoming Australia’s key strategic ally.     

'Adorned with the Mix of Faith and Profanity that Intoxicates the People': The Festival of the Senhor do Bonfim in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, 1930–19541

This essay looks at a formative period in the history of the festival of the Senhor do Bonfim, one of Salvador's most important religious festivals. The essay focuses on the public ritual washing of the Church of Bonfim and the tensions between the Catholic Church, who periodically banned the washing from the larger festival, and a variety of historical actors including politicians, journalists, authors and working-class Salvadorans whose efforts eventually contributed to the lifting of the prohibition once and for all in 1953. The author suggests that the defence of the washing both reflected and contributed to a larger hegemonic process taking place in Salvador after 1930, as actors within Salvador's dominant class accepted and even praised Afro-Bahian cultural practices, including them as integral parts of a larger Bahian identity.