Sport flying is about to take off.This summer, the Federal Aviation Administration will approve a new sport flying license that will let people earn their wings for a fraction of the time and cost of a traditional license. The Complete Idiot’s Guide® to Sport Flying introduces this new field of flying to consumers, and shows you how to fly smart—offering hundreds of tips on how to get more flying fun for less money.• Includes an illustrate...

This book provides a comprehensive history of Brazilian agricultural economic development between 1890 and 1950. It details the US agricultural education that made an impact on Brazil and how this translated into private capital in the US. The book highlights the shifting priorities of Brazil's regional elites during the First Republic and takes readers through the its downfall in 1930. Chapters cover how US educators implanted the philosophy and practices of US agricultural education at t...

This volume highlights factors that led to the onset of the U.S. presence within colonial Brazil’s mercantilist economy and then the independent Brazilian empire’s agricultural, scientific, religious and educational institutions.The book examines the interaction of U.S. businessmen, explorers, scientists, immigrants, missionaries, and educators with the dominant institutions of the Luso-Brazilian empires. Employing an institutionalist framework to describe the interplay between for...

Between 1950 and 1985, the United States provided an ongoing flow of resources to support Brazilian agriculture. These were granted regardless of the orientation of the dominant political party in both countries.This book documents the Cold War-driven aid programs, the private capital, and investment from American philanthropists that laid the foundation for economic development to soar in Brazil through to today. Earl Richard Downes explains how Brazil became a major catalyst for ...

On May 13, 1934, a baby boy was born to parents just trying to survive in the midst of desperate times. While his mama toiled in the cotton fields and his daddy worked in the sawmill, Earl Downing grew up catching minnows, swimming in the Suwannee River, and gobbling fistfuls of three-cent candy from the general store.In this memoir, Downing narrates a unique coming-of-age journey as he endured the many challenges that accompanied uncertain times in America. While the threat of wor...

The History of Mexico: From Pre-Conquest to Present traces the last 500 years of Mexican history, from the indigenous empires that were devastated by the Spanish conquest through the election of 2006 and its aftermath. The book offers a straightforward chronological survey of Mexican history from the pre-colonial times to the present, and includes a glossary as well as numerous tables and images for comprehensive study.In lively and engaging prose, Philip Russell guides re...

The relationship between business and politics is crucial to understanding Mexican history, and Pesos and Politics explores this relationship from the mid-nineteenth century dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz through the Mexican Revolution (1876–1940). Historian Mark Wasserman argues that throughout this era, over the course of successive regimes, there was an evolving enterprise system that had to balance the interests of the Mexican national elite, state and local governments, large ...

Demonstrating that globalization is a centuries-old phenomenon, From Silver to Cocaine examines the commodity chains that have connected producers in Latin America with consumers around the world for five hundred years. In clear, accessible essays, historians from Latin America, England, and the United States trace the paths of many of Latin America’s most important exports: coffee, bananas, rubber, sugar, tobacco, silver, henequen (fiber), fertilizers, cacao, cocaine, indigo, and...

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's dramatic life story has captured the imagination of millions, and his progressive politics have brought hope and excitement to Brazil—and the world. This compelling work is the first major English-language biography of the metalworker who became president of Latin America's largest and most powerful country. In a clearly written, vividly detailed narrative, Richard Bourne describes Lula's childhood hardships in an impoverished family, his days as a revered trade...

Between 1850 and 1930, Latin America's integration into the world economy through the export of raw materials transformed the region. This encounter was nearly as dramatic as the conquistadors' epic confrontation with Native American civilizations centuries before. An emphasis on foreign markets and capital replaced protectionism and self-sufficiency as the hemisphere's guiding principles. In many ways, the means employed during this period to tie Latin America more closely to western Euro...

Oil has played a major role in Venezuela’s economy since the first gusher was discovered along Lake Maracaibo in 1922. As Miguel Tinker Salas demonstrates, oil has also transformed the country’s social, cultural, and political landscapes. In The Enduring Legacy, Tinker Salas traces the history of the oil industry’s rise in Venezuela from the beginning of the twentieth century, paying particular attention to the experiences and perceptions of industry employees, both foreign and Ve...

In Watering the Revolution Mikael D. Wolfe transforms our understanding of Mexican agrarian reform through an environmental and technological history of water management in the emblematic Laguna region. Drawing on extensive archival research in Mexico and the United States, Wolfe shows how during the long Mexican Revolution (1910-1940) engineers’ distribution of water paradoxically undermined land distribution. In so doing, he highlights the intrinsic tension engineers faced betwe...