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On the outskirts of Havana lies Mazorra, an asylum known to--and at times feared by--ordinary Cubans for over a century. Since its founding in 1857, the island's first psychiatric hospital has been an object of persistent political attention. Drawing on hospital documents and government records, as well as the popular press, photographs, and oral histories, Jennifer L. Lambe charts the connections between the inner workings of this notorious institution and the highest echelons of Cuban politics. Across the sweep of modern Cuban history, she finds, Mazorra has served as both laboratory and microcosm of the Cuban state: the asylum is an icon of its ignominious colonial and neocolonial past an...
Grounded in theoretical principle, Media Effects and Society help students make the connection between mass media and the impact it has on society as a whole. The text also explores how the relationship individuals have with media is created, therefore helping them alleviate its harmful effects and enhance the positive ones. The range of media effects addressed herein includes news diffusion, learning from the mass media, socialization of children and adolescents, influences on public opinion and voting, and violent and sexually explicit media content. The text examines relevant research done in these areas and discusses it in a thorough and accessible manner. It also presents a variety of t...
Cuban politics has long been remarkable for its passionate intensity, and yet few scholars have explored the effect of emotions on political attitudes and action in Cuba or elsewhere. This book thus offers an important new approach by bringing feelings back into the study of politics and showing how the politics of passion and affection have interacted to shape Cuban history throughout the twentieth century. Damián Fernández characterizes the politics of passion as the pursuit of a moral absolute for the nation as a whole. While such a pursuit rallied the Cuban people around charismatic leaders such as Fidel Castro, Fernández finds that it also set the stage for disaffection and disconnection when the grand goal never fully materialized. At the same time, he reveals how the politics of affection-taking care of family and friends outside the formal structures of government-has paradoxically both undermined state regimes and helped them remain in power by creating an informal survival network that provides what the state cannot or will not.
As the Cuban Revolution reaches its sixtieth anniversary, contributors to this special issue explore the impact of the revolution through the lens of sexuality and gender, providing a social and cultural history that illuminates the Cuban-influenced global New Left. Moving beyond assumptions about the revolutionary left's hypermasculinity and homophobia, the issue takes a nuanced approach to the Cuban Revolution's impact on gender and sexuality. Contributors study Cuban internationalist campaigns, the relationship between cultural diplomacy and mass media, and visual images of revolution and solidarity. They follow the emergence and negotiation of new gender ideals through the transgendering...
Historical revisionism refers to any reinterpretation of recorded history, but whether this practice is beneficial, harmful, or somewhere in between is hotly contested. While allowing newly discovered evidence and facts to enter the historical record may seem benign, the reinterpretation of existing facts to reflect contemporary morality is a far more controversial aspect of the topic. Many also worry this could lead to historical facts being distorted, as has been the case with Holocaust denial. This volume discusses the different forms and causes of historical revisionism along with the ethical, social, and scholarly concerns related to the issue.
Raza traces the anti-colonial struggles of Indian revolutionaries in the context of Communist Internationalism during the last decades of the British Raj.
Reveals the centrality of women rebels to Fidel Castro's Cuban insurrection in the 1950s.
Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist Winner of the Willie Lee Rose Prize Winner of the PROSE Award in United States History Hagley Prize in Business History Finalist A Smithsonian Best History Book of the Year “Vaping gets all the attention now, but Milov’s thorough study reminds us that smoking has always intersected with the government, for better or worse.” —New York Times Book Review From Jamestown to the Marlboro Man, tobacco has powered America’s economy and shaped some of its most enduring myths. The story of tobacco’s rise and fall may seem simple enough—a tale of science triumphing over corporate greed—but the truth is more complicated. After the Great Depression, g...
Oaxaca is known for many things—its indigenous groups, archaeological sites, crafts, and textiles—but not for mental health care. When one talks with Oaxacans about mental health, most say it's a taboo topic and that people there think you "have to be crazy to go to a psychologist." Yet throughout Oaxaca are signs advertising the services of psicólogos; there are prominent conferences of mental health professionals; and self-help groups like Neurotics Anonymous thrive, where participants rise to say, "Hola, mi nombre es Raquel, y soy neurótica." How does one explain the recent growth of Euroamerican-style therapies in the region? Author Whitney L. Duncan analyzes this phenomenon of "ps...
The first major history of Chile’s most significant peasant rebellion and the violent repression that followed In 1934, peasants turned to revolution to overturn Chile’s oligarchic political order and the profound social inequalities in the Chilean countryside. The brutal military counterinsurgency that followed was one of the worst acts of state terror in Chile until the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973–1990). Using untapped archival sources, award-winning scholar Thomas Miller Klubock exposes Chile’s long history of political violence and authoritarianism and chronicles peasants’ movements to build a more just and freer society. Klubock further explores how an amnesty law that erased both the rebellion and the military atrocities lay the foundation for the political stability that characterized Chile’s multi-party democracy. This historical amnesia or olvido, Klubock argues, was a precondition of national reconciliation and democratic rule, which endured until 1973, when conflict in the countryside ended once again with violent repression during the Pinochet dictatorship.