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The Maya Indian peoples of Chiapas had been mobilizing politically for years before the Zapatista rebellion that brought them to international attention. This authoritative volume explores the different ways that Indians across Chiapas have carved out autonomous cultural and political spaces in their diverse communities and regions. Offering a consistent and cohesive vision of the complex evolution of a region and its many cultures and histories, this work is a fundamental source for understanding key issues in nation building. In a unique collaboration, the book brings together recognized authorities who have worked in Chiapas for decades, many linking scholarship with social and political activism. Their combined perspectives, many previously unavailable in English, make this volume the most authoritative, richly detailed, and authentic work available on the people behind the Zapatista movement. ... Read more

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Understanding the Zapatistas
Jan Rus and company have compiled some well-researched articles by scholars who have devoted many years living with and studying indigenous communities in Chiapas.
This book is a well-organized anthropological-historical analysis of the emergence of the Zapatista rebellion and the response by the different indigenous groups who are seeking to develop their identity and their communities in a changing Mexico. An excellent introduction and well-written articles make this text essential for a balancedand insightful understanding of the groups seeking autonomy and democracy in Chiapas and Mexico. ... Read more

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The twenty papers presented in this volume stem from the First AURA Congress held in Darwin in 1988, an effort on the part of the Australian Rock Art Research Association to assemble an internationally significant body of expertise in the field of prehistoric rock art. Extensively illustrated, contributors include: E B Parkman (Cupule Petroglyph occurrences in the American West); R Mark & E Newman (Cup-and-ring petroglyps in northern California); D W Ritter & E W Ritter (Line convention in rock art of North America );G Granzberg & J Steinbring (The line, tree, and circle in rock art and pictography); K M Nissen (Petroglyph research in the Western Great Basin of North America); D L Hamann (Hohokam rock art of Southern Arizona); E C Dorman (Prehistoric rock art of the San Rafael Swell); C W Meighan (Central American rock art); R E Connick & F Connick (A summer solstice petroglyph site); R Q Lewis et al (Colonial rock art in Bolivia); M Consens (Rock art sites of southeastern South America); M M Podesta (Approaches to Argentinean Puna rock art); R Q Lewis (Bolivian rock art) ... Read more

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Beyond Black and Red is the first book to deal primarily and specifically with relations between Africans and native peoples in colonial Latin America. Matthew Restall has collected nine essays that represent contributions to the larger fields of colonial Latin American history, African diaspora studies, and ethnohistory. Among the subjects addressed are marriage and miscegenation, identity and nomenclature, cultural exchanges, labor, and cooperation in resisting colonialism versus collaboration.

The authors examine core areas such as Mesoamerica, the Andes, and Brazil, and peripheral ones such as Florida, Colombia, and the Orinoco basin. The contributors find that relations between black and native peoples were sometimes harmonious, sometimes hostile, depending on local dynamics and individual agendas. Native and black soldiers fought sometimes as comrades, sometimes as adversaries, and couples in mixed marriages might identify as Indian or as black depending on where the advantage lay in a given society.

Contributors to Beyond Black and Red

Patrick J. Carroll, professor of history, Texas A & M University, Corpus Christi Susan Kellogg, professor of history, University of Houston Kris Lane, Wakefield Distinguished Associate Professor of History, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Virginia Hal Langfur, assistant professor of history, University of North Carolina, Wilmington Jane Landers, associate professor of history, Vanderbilt University, Nashville Christopher Lutz, director of Plumsock Mesoamerican Studies/CIRMA Norma Angélica Castillo Palma, profesora investigadora of comparative and regional history, Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, Iztapalapa Stuart B. Schwartz, George Burton Adams Professor of History, Yale University Renée Soulodre-La France, assistant professor of history, King’s University College, University of Western Ontario, London Ben Vinson III, associate professor of Latin American history, Pennsylvania State University, University Park Neil Whitehead, professor of anthropology, University of Wisconsin, Madison ... Read more

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amazing scholar achievement
great book on the nahua civilizations in "Central America". this is a must in understanding our Anahuac (Mexican & Central American)history. get this anyway you can. ... Read more

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"A survey of Amerindian peoples is a most complex subject, and historian Olson has done a magnificent job of compiling a dictionary that is comprehensive and well-supported by cross references and extensive bibliographies. Succinct entries provide social, demographic, and historical data on the 500 extant tribes south of Mexico. . . . [He] has incorporated and updated information from myriad sources, filling a major void in Latin American research materials. There is also an index of tribes by country, extensive bibliographies by ethnic group, and an extensive 15-page chronology. This is a book large libraries cannot afford to be without." Library Journal ... Read more

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Although the environment does play a major role in shaping the central Arctic Inuit political, social, and economic landscape, many aspects of Inuit society are determined culturally. This book assesses these factors and concludes with an examination of the politics of survival. ... Read more

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Intensive excavations in settlement areas within greater Tikal generated far more than an understanding of the complex gradations of social classes at this lowland Maya site. Identification of a specific architectural pattern associated with relatively small shrines on the eastern side of certain residential groups, and of a distinctive mortuary program, provides a means by which a "plaza plan" can be predicted using good site maps alone. This discovery enabled archaeologists to predict locations for high-status burials in residential as well as in ceremonial areas.

Application of these findings at sites beyond Tikal has been demonstrated to be successful throughout the region and even beyond the Maya heartland. Identification of this "plaza plan" also has led us to recognize nine other architectural group plans at Tikal, providing a model for planning excavation strategies and developing theories of cultural change at Tikal and other Maya sites.

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Designed to build Central American infrastructures, Mexico's Plan Puebla-Panama (PPP) was launched in 2001 but collapsed hopelessly by 2003. A content analysis finds the Washington consensus severely at odds with indigenous cultures, while invoking the broader globalization-localization debate. The book also examines the fate many modern chief executives facing under similar circumstances. ... Read more

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From the myths and legends of the ancient world to the verfied historical records of modern times, these inspiring volumes provide a window onto the past, enabling the reader to understand previous eras and the men and women who created them.

A fascinating visual guide to the history and lives of America's native peoples from early times to the present day, encompassing unique tribal traditions, practices, and beliefs. ... Read more

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In White Man’s Paper Trail, award-winning journalist and author Stan Hoig presents a poignant history of the U.S. government’s attempts to peacefully negotiate treaties with the tribes of the Central Plains, from the friendship pacts of the early 1800s through the last formal treaty in 1871, when Congress put an end to treaty-making.

Drawing on records and transcripts of treaty councils in Missouri, Arkansas, the Dakotas, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Wyoming, Hoig reveals unequivocal testimony that documents countless fallacies and indiscretions by Euro-Americans in the making and enforcement of treaties. He shows how treaty-making, negotiated by peace commissioners and once the most promising method for resolving conflicts without military involvement, degenerated into a deeply flawed system sullied by political deceptions and broken promises.

White Man’s Paper Trail illuminates the pivotal role of these negotiations in the buildup to the Plains Indian wars, in American Indians’ loss of land and self-determination, and in Euro-American westward expansion. ... Read more

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This complete set of reports from the Carnegie InstitutionÂ’s Maya program collects in one thematically and regionally organized volume hundreds of documents from a foundational New World archaeological project.

The Carnegie Institution of Washington sponsored archaeological, ethnographic, linguistic, and historical investigations in the Maya region of southern Mexico and northern Central America between 1914 and 1957. The institution led the field during that time, with financial support and other resources no university could match.

Dispersed and out-of-print for fifty years, more than 350 reports from the Maya program are now available in this single volume and accompanying fully searchable CD-ROM. Reports from the institutionÂ’s annual Year Books and other materials collected here tell the history of Maya research through firsthand accounts by participating scholars and reveal the progression of Mesoamerican archaeology from avocational interest to scholarly pursuit. Thematic and regional organization of the reports permits readers to monitor development of research concepts. Appendixes list all Carnegie Maya publications, Carnegie personnel, and the archival holdings of Carnegie-derived material at Harvard University, Tulane University, and the University of Chicago. ... Read more

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The regions and the people of the southern cone of South America have been identified as wild and at the edge of the world. The present compilation of research by scholars, many of whom are members of the Argentine Academia, effectively summarizes the struggle of the Mapuche, Tehuelche, Rankuelche, and Selk'nam peoples for a continued sense of cultural identity distinct from the one of inferiority foisted upon them by Spanish conquerors. ... Read more

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"This is a significant contribution to the field. . . . Quirigua, although well-studied archaeologically, has not received this kind of single dedicated study of monuments. . . . This is not because the site and its art are unimportant; as this study amply demonstrates, the artwork of the site is of great significance within the gamut of Classic Maya art."--Rosemary A. Joyce, Professor of Anthropology, University of California, BerkeleyThe ancient Maya city of Quirigua occupied a crossroads between Copan in the southeastern Maya highlands and the major centers of the Peten heartland. Though always a relatively small city, Quirigua stands out because of its public monuments, which were some of the greatest achievements of Classic Maya civilization. Impressive not only for their colossal size, high sculptural quality, and eloquent hieroglyphic texts, the sculptures of Quirigua are also one of the few complete, in situ series of Maya monuments anywhere, which makes them a crucial source of information about ancient Maya spirituality and political practice within a specific historical context. Using epigraphic, iconographic, and stylistic analyses, this study explores the integrated political-religious meanings of Quirigua's monumental sculptures during the eighth-century A.D. reign of the city's most famous ruler, K'ak' Tiliw. In particular, Matthew Looper focuses on the role of stelae and other sculpture in representing the persona of the ruler not only as a political authority but also as a manifestation of various supernatural entities with whom he was associated through ritual performance. By tracing this sculptural program from its Early Classic beginnings through the reigns of K'ak' Tiliw and his successors, and also by linking it to practices at Copan, Looper offers important new insights into the politico-religious history of Quirigua and its ties to other Classic Maya centers, the role of kingship in Maya society, and the development of Maya art. ... Read more

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Pre-eminent scholarship
This is a book for scholars, for the dedicated avocational Mayanist, and for those who have been so fortunate as to visit Quirigua (and/or Copan) and care to look behind the intriguing scenes through the impressively perceptive eyes of a specialist and expert. Not for the casual, book-a-day reader, "Lightning Warrior" is weighty, both literally and figuratively, and it has a hefty price. It is also a fascinating story, explicated in minute detail.The exhaustive thoroughness of Prof. Looper's scholarship will, I think, ensure the lasting value of this outstanding and beautifully produced, large-format volume. ... Read more

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"Most anthropologists who have lived among other people . . . feel a periodic need to go back," writes Philip A. Dennis in the introduction to this book. "Fieldwork gives you a stake in the people themselves, a set of relationships that last the rest of your life . . . and when the time is right, it is important to go back." Dennis first journeyed to Awastara, a village on the northeastern coast of Nicaragua, during 1978-1979 as a postdoctoral student. He had come to study a culture-bound syndrome in which young women are possessed by devils. In the process, he became fascinated by other aspects of Miskitu culture--turtle fishing, Miskitu Christianity, community development efforts--the whole pattern of Miskitu community life. He also formed deep friendships to carry into the future. Twenty years later he was able to return and continue his ethnographic work. Utilizing ideas from recent interpretive anthropology and a vivid writing style, Dennis describes food habits, language, health practices, religious beliefs, and storytelling, inviting the reader to experience life in Awastara along with him. Building upon earlier work by Mary Helms, Bernard Nietschmann, Edmund Gordon, and Charles Hale, The Miskitu People of Awastara makes its own original contribution. It is the first full-length study of a coastal Miskitu community north of Puerto Cabezas, contrasting life before and after the war years of the 1980s. It will be a valuable addition to the literature on this indigenous group and should appeal to anthropologists and other social scientists, as well as all readers interested in peoples of the Caribbean coast. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

a great resource
There are so few books out there on life in a Miskito village that it is hard to be critical of any of them.However, this one was right on.The author has such a unique persepective as he was able to contrast a year spent in a village just before the 1980 civil war and a year spent there after the war.It was sad to see a people that seem to work so hard never get a chance to get ahead.The author explains well the systemic challenges the people face, from lack of hope in education, to the high cost of transport, to inadequate capital to improve their lot in life.I highly recommend this book. ... Read more