Bildner Western Hemisphere Studies – serie

This groundbreaking work is the first volume in English to examine Brazil's historic policy reforms of the 1990s and the political, economic, and social results. For years the large and ineffective government of Brazil could neither improve the country's greatly uneven distribution of wealth nor maintain inflation at reasonable levels. In the 1990s, long overdue changes bettered the government's fiscal performance, tamed inflation, and addressed chronic social ills stemming from the imbalance of wealth. But many problems, and many questions, remain. Why is Brazil still so poor, and why is inequality so intransigent? Were some of the reforms counterproductive, or could they have been implemented in a more effective way? Collecting essays by top Brazilianist scholars from various disciplines and intellectual traditions, Reforming Brazil provides new insights for international policy makers, economists, and scholars of Brazil.

While Fernando Ortiz's contribution to our understanding of Cuba and Latin America more generally has been widely recognized since the 1940s, recently there has been renewed interest in this scholar and activist who made lasting contributions to a staggering array of fields. This book is the first work in English to reassess Ortiz's vast intellectual universe. Essays in this volume analyze and celebrate his contribution to scholarship in Cuban history, the social sciences—notably anthropology—and law, religion and national identity, literature, and music. Presenting Ortiz's seminal thinking, including his profoundly influential concept of 'transculturation', Cuban Counterpoints explores the bold new perspectives that he brought to bear on Cuban society. Much of his most challenging and provocative thinking—which embraced simultaneity, conflict, inherent contradiction and hybridity—has remarkable relevance for current debates about Latin America's complex and evolving societies.

Jose Marti contributed greatly to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain with words as well as revolutionary action. Although he died before the formation of an independent republic, he has since been hailed as a heroic martyr inspiring Cuban republican traditions. During the twentieth century, traditionally nationalistic literature has reinforced an uncritical idealization of Marti and his influence. However, new approaches have recently explored the formation, reception, uses and abuses of the Marti myth. The essays in this volume analyze the influence of Jose Marti - poet, scholar, and revolutionary - on the formation of often-competing national identities in post-independence Cuba. By exploring the diverse representations and interpretations of Marti, they provide a critical analysis of the ways in which both the left and right have used his political and literary legacies to argue their version of contemporary Cuban "reality."

Jose Marti contributed greatly to Cuba's struggle for independence from Spain with words as well as revolutionary action. Although he died before the formation of an independent republic, he has since been hailed as a heroic martyr inspiring Cuban republican traditions. During the twentieth century, traditionally nationalistic literature has reinforced an uncritical idealization of Marti and his influence. However, new approaches have recently explored the formation, reception, uses and abuses of the Marti myth. The essays in this volume analyze the influence of Jose Marti - poet, scholar, and revolutionary - on the formation of often-competing national identities in post-independence Cuba. By exploring the diverse representations and interpretations of Marti, they provide a critical analysis of the ways in which both the left and right have used his political and literary legacies to argue their version of contemporary Cuban "reality."