Examines how poor and working-class communities in Guadalajara organized through faith, education, and culture to claim dignity, justice, and the right to the city.Strength in Unity: Christian Base Communities and the Urban Popular Movement in Guadalajara, 1965–1994 presents the grassroots history of Guadalajara’s urban popular movement, centering the voices and struggles of poor and working-class communities, especially women, who organized for d...

Looking beyond prominent figures or major ecclesial events, Liberation Theology and the Others offers a fresh historical perspective on Latin American liberation theology. Thirteen case studies, from Mexico to Uruguay, depict a vivid picture of religious and lay activism that shaped the profile of the Latin American Catholic Church in the second half of the 20th century. Stressing the transnational character of Catholic activism and its intersections with prevalent discourses of c...

A massive uprising against the Mexican state of Oaxaca began with the emergence of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca (APPO) in June 2006. A coalition of more than 300 organizations, APPO disrupted the functions of Oaxaca's government for six months. It began to develop an inclusive and participatory political vision for the state. Testimonials were broadcast on radio and television stations appropriated by APPO, shared at public demonstrations, debated in homes and in the stree...

Struggling to free itself from a century of economic decline and stagnation, the town of San Miguel de Allende, nestled in the hills of central Mexico, discovered that its “timeless” quality could provide a way forward. While other Mexican towns pursued policies of industrialization, San Miguel—on the economic, political, and cultural margins of revolutionary Mexico—worked to demonstrate that it preserved an authentic quality, earning designation as a “typical Mexican town” by the Guanajua...

Over the past two decades, Zapatista indigenous community members have asserted their autonomy and self-determination by using everyday practices as part of their struggle for lekil kuxlejal, a dignified collective life connected to a specific territory. This in-depth ethnography summarizes Mariana Mora’s more than ten years of extended research and solidarity work in Chiapas, with Tseltal and Tojolabal community members helping to design and evaluate her fieldwork. The result of ...

Contemporary natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina are quickly followed by disagreements about whether and how communities should be rebuilt, whether political leaders represent the community’s best interests, and whether the devastation could have been prevented. Shaky Colonialism demonstrates that many of the same issues animated the aftermath of disasters more than 250 years ago. On October 28, 1746, a massive earthquake ravaged Lima, a bustling city of 50,000, capital of...

In this book, Mireya Loza sheds new light on the private lives of migrant men who participated in the Bracero Program (1942–1964), a binational agreement between the United States and Mexico that allowed hundreds of thousands of Mexican workers to enter this country on temporary work permits. While this program and the issue of temporary workers has long been politicized on both sides of the border, Loza argues that the prevailing romanticized image of braceros as a family-oriented, produc...

Until now, very little about the recent history of the Mapuche, Chile’s largest indigenous group, has been available to English-language readers. Courage Tastes of Blood helps to rectify this situation. It tells the story of one Mapuche community—Nicolás Ailío, located in the south of the country—across the entire twentieth century, from its founding in the resettlement process that followed the military defeat of the Mapuche by the Chilean state at the end of the nineteenth centu...

The revolutionary movements that emerged frequently in Latin America over the past century promoted goals that included overturning dictatorships, confronting economic inequalities, and creating what Cuban revolutionary hero Che Guevara called the "new man." But, in fact, many of the "new men" who participated in these movements were not men. Thousands of them were women. This book aims to show why a full understanding of revolutions needs to take account of gender.Karen Kampwirth ...

In the 1920s, Mexico established rural normales—boarding schools that trained teachers in a new nation-building project. Drawn from campesino ranks and meant to cultivate state allegiance, their graduates would facilitate land distribution, organize civic festivals, and promote hygiene campaigns. In Unintended Lessons of Revolution, Tanalís Padilla traces the history of the rural normales, showing how they became sites of radical politics. As Padilla demonstrates, the popular long...

Winner of the 2014 Mexican Book PrizeIn the middle of the twentieth century, a growing tide of student activism in Mexico reached a level that could not be ignored, culminating with the 1968 movement. This book traces the rise, growth, and consequences of Mexico's "student problem" during the long sixties (1956-1971). Historian Jaime M. Pensado closely analyzes student politics and youth culture during this period, as well as reactions to them on the part of competing actors. Exami...

This book examines a unique university model for social change-the University of Central America Jos Sime-n Ca-as (UCA) in El Salvador, where the military murdered six Jesuit priests and two women on November 16, 1989.The book addresses such important questions as: Is the role of a university to train managers for maintaining the status quo, or to prepare graduates who will help create a new society? Is the university an ivory tower, or a center for research on social problems? Begi...