Puerto Rico: A Political and Cultural History

Morales Carrión, Arturo, Puerto Rico: A Political and Cultural History, New York: W. W. Norton, 1983.

Reviewed in The Christian Science Monitor.

Review by Thomas G. Mathews:

There has never been available a scholarly one volume general history on Puerto Rico in English. There have been and are popular histories written in English and Spanish for the general public and there are text book like histories written for the high school level in Spanish and English. Until now a well written, adequately documented, balanced and fairly objective history in English has been lamentably lacking. Arturo Morales Carrión, and his four colleagues, have filled this void. Prepared at the request of the editors of the American Association for State and Local History, this work, if it were to be published in Spanish could stand as an authoritative national history for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. The volume covers quite adequately a vast span of time from the pre-historical period, the four hundred years of Spanish control, and the modern period up to about 1970. The balance achieved in the coverage is excellent with two thirds of the book allotted to the present century.

The chapters in the first part of the book are written by three colleagues of the principal author and cover the Spanish colonial period. These chapters, although not documented, are supported by a rich collection of references which is more than just an annotated bibliography, but is rather a very judicious selection of works for further study on the topics covered in each chapter. Each contributor is a specialist in a particular time period in Puerto Rican history. Aida Caro contributes two chapters on the Spanish colonial administration and the church as they affected Puerto Rico during the first two centuries of Spanish rule. Luis González, an economic historian, contributes three chapters on the Bourbon period and the nineteenth century. Arturo Santana, drawing on his doctoral dissertation, writes on the early influences of the United States in the Caribbean, and specifically Puerto Rico, at the time of revolutionary turmoil. In the last chapter of the book, María Teresa Babín contributes a stirring essay on the cultural history of Puerto Rico. Each of these contributors write with authority and knowledge, backing their interpretations with a wealth of material drawn from a life of scholarly work.

The bulk of the book, eight chapters on the XXth century, is the work of Arturo Morales Carrión and it is here that the merit of the book lies. The chapters are exceptionally well written. The use of source material of both primary and secondary nature shows a very skillful professional hand. but most of all the author has come very close to achieving what many, myself included, would say is impossible: an objectivity and balance which must bring out praise from the full spectrum of Puerto Rican politics.

The author, as he confesses in the text, was a “close associate of Governor (Luis) Muñoz (Marín).” (p. 299) Although trained as a historian, Morales Carrión spent many years in government administrative posts, in both Puerto Rican and United States State Departments. He has given evidence, in this work at least, that he may be longer remembered as a historian rather than a diplomat. This is a job well done.

Revolution in Mexico: Years of Upheaval, 1910-1940

Wilkie, James Wallace, & Albert L. Michael, Eds., Revolution in Mexico: Years of Upheaval, 1910-1940, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1969. (paperback with pages coming loose.)

Contents:

INTRODUCTION

I. THE REVOLUTION: BACKGROUND AND OVERVIEW (Prefatory notes by Ramon Beteta and Alberto Morales Jimenez)
Chronology: Mexico’s Presidents, 1876 – 1940.
1. Causes of the Revolution, by Frank R. Brandenburg.
2. Mexico’s Economic Development, 1910 – 1940, by Raymond Vernon.

II. THE REVOLUTION: A FIESTA OF BULLETS (Prefatory notes by Octavio Paz and Mariano Azuela)
Chronology of Important Events.
3. Plan of San Luis Potosi, by Francisco I. Madero.
4. Emiliano Zapata Greets the Victorious Francisco Madero, by Gildardo Magaña.
5. Plan of Ayala, by Emiliano Zapata, et. al.
6. The Arrest of Francisco Madero and Murder of His Brother, by Stanley R. Ross.
7. Mrs. Francisco Madero’s Attempt to Save the Life of Her Husband, by Ernest Gruening.
8. The Politics of Armed Struggle in the Mexican Revolution, 1913 – 1915, by Lyle C. Brown.
9. Pancho Villa and the Rules of War, by John Reed.
10. Villa Meets Zapata, by Robert E. Quirk.
11. The Crimson Jester: Zapata of Mexico, by Harry H. Dunn.
12. Moral Imperialism and the United States Intervention, by Howard F. Cline.
13. Note to President Wilson Concerning the United States Occupation of Veracruz, by Venustiano Carranza.
14. La Soldadera, by John Reed.
15. Generals, by Carleton Beals.
16. Battle of Celaya, by Robert E. Quirk.
17. Mexico’s Constitution of 1917, by Lyle C. Brown.
18. Open Letter to Carranza, by Emiliano Zapata.

III. THE NORTHERN DYNASTY (Prefatory notes by Francisco Javier Gaxiola, Jr., and Samuel Velazquez G.)
Chronology of the Northern Dynasty.
19. The Neo-Bourbons, by Howard F. Cline.
20. Alvaro Obregon: The Happy Man with One Arm, by Hudson Strode.
21. Bolshevist Mexico? By The New York Times.
22. Calles and the Mexican Oil Controversy, by Dwight W. Morrow.
23. The Achievements of Calles, by Frank R. Brandenburg.
24. Public Health in Mexico, by Ernest Gruening.
25. The Meaning of the Cristero Religious War, by James W. Wilkie.
26. The Indian Who Sways Mexico’s Destiny, Joaquin Amaro, by Carleton Beals.
27. The Foundation of Mexico’s Official Party, by Robert E. Scott.
28. “A Handful of Millionaires”, by Carlos Fuentes.
29. On Strikes, by Abelardo Rodriguez.
30. Letter of Resignation from the CROM, by Vicente Lombardo Toledano.
31. Calles’ Agrarian Ideology, by Eyler N. Simpson.
32. The Agrarian Reform Must Continue, by Graciano Sanchez.
33. “God Does Not Exist”, by Arnulfo Perez H.
34. Sexual Education and Socialist Education in Mexico – The early 1930’s, by James W. Wilkie.

IV. THE CARDENAS ERA (Prefatory notes by Carlos Fuentes and Daniel Cosio Villegas)
Chronology of the Cardenas Era.
35. Strikes Under Cardenas, by John W.F. Dulles.
36. Rise of the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM), by Nathaniel and Sylvia Weyl.
37. The Cardenas – Calles Break, by Albert L. Michaels.
38. Sinarquismo Victory in Tabasco, by Rev. Joseph Ledit, S.J.
39. Mexico’s Popular Front – The Party of the Mexican Revolution (PRM), by Nathaniel and Sylvia Weyl.
40. Cardenas Expropriates the Foreign-Owned Oil Industry, by William Cameron Townsend.
41. Oil Company Reaction, by E. David Cronon.
42. Problems of the Cardenas Government, by Virginia Prewett.
43. Mexico’s Future, by Jose Vasconcelos.
44. The Founding of the National Action Party (PAN), by Manuel Gomez Morin.
45. Election Day, 1940, by Betty Kirk.
46. A Communist’s View of Cardenas, by Valentin Campa.
47. A Summary of the Cardenas Epoch, by Albert L. Michaels.

V. CONCLUSION. (Prefatory notes by Manuel Avila Camacho and Frederico Bach)
48. Mexico’s Transition in 1940, by Howard F. Cline.
Bibliographic Essay.
Bibliographic Index of Authors Quoted.

The Pageant of Cuba

Strode, Hudson, The Pageant of Cuba, New York: Random House, 1934.

Available online.

Reviewed in The Spectator.

Reviewed in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review © 1935.

Hudson Strode (October 31, 1892 – September 22, 1976) was an author and professor of creative writing at the University of Alabama. He taught at the University of Alabama from 1916 until his retirement in 1963. His creative writing classes gained international fame for the literary successes achieved by his students. Strode’s students published over 55 novels and 101 short stories. One of Strode's students was the author Borden Deal. Strode wrote several books on Scandinavian and Caribbean countries before turning to biography.

Porto Rico; History and Conditions Social, Economic and Political

Mixer, Knowlton, Porto Rico; history and conditions social, economic and political, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1926. (has one page with a photo torn out)

Available for download.

Reviewed in The University Journal of Business © 1926.

Reviewed in The Geographical Teacher © 1926.

Excerpt from a Review by: Advocate of Peace through Justice:

The author shows the fine co-operative spirit of the Red-Cross, in whose service he spent some time in Puerto Rico. He has spared no pains, evidently, to obtain data from various American bureaus and commissioners, and his bibliography comes from the Director of the Carnegie Library at San Juan. Yet the story is written in one dimension. Judging from internal evidence, Mr. Mixer is not himself familiar with the Spanish language and, possibly for that reason, is not able sympathetically to interpret the history of the island.

Puerto Rico and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean: A Study in the Decline of Spanish Exclusivism

Morales-Carrión, Arturo, Puerto Rico and the Non-Hispanic Caribbean: A Study in the Decline of Spanish Exclusivism, Río Piedras, PR: University of Puerto Rico Press, 1952.

Available at Questia.

Reviewed in The Hispanic American Historical Review © 1954.

Dr. Arturo Morales Carrión, as Gov. Rafael Hernández Colón eulogized him, "one of the principal figures" in the history of Puerto Rico. Born November 16, 1913 in Havana, Cuba, of Puerto Rican parentage, he died in June, 1989 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, after having served under Gov. Luis Muñoz Marín as Under Secretary of State of Puerto Rico, under President John F. Kennedy as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs,[1] as special assistant to the Secretary General of the Organization of American States and as president of the University of Puerto Rico.

The Senate of Puerto Rico Concurrent Resolution No. 1

The Senate of Puerto Rico, Senate Concurrent Resolution No. 1, San Juan, PR: Bureau of Supplies, printing and Transportation, 1935.

Messrs. Martínez Nadal, Iriarte, Bolívar Pagán, Echevarría, García Méndez, García Veve, Ochart, Pacheco, Ramos, Reyes Delgado, Serrallés, Valdés, and Villanueva, introduced on behalf of the Economy Commission of the Legislature of Puerto Rico, the following

CONCURRENT RESOLUTION

Setting forth to the President and the Congress of the United States of America the economic and social evils confronting The People of Puerto Rico and pointing out specific recommendations for a complete economic-social rehabilitation of the Island.

Whereas, The Island of Puerto Rico is an organized non-contiguous territory of the United States of America, considered as an integral part of the Nation by reason of the citizenship enjoyed by it;

Whereas The National Administration has made public its purpose to include the Island of Puerto Rico within the General Rehabilitation Plan which the President of the United States of America, Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt, has submitted to Congress to cope with the prevalent economic situation and to combat unemployment;

Whereas, The Island of Puerto Rico is undergoing a very serious economic crisis, brought about by the destruction of its wealth by the hurricanes of 1928 and 1932, the prevalent depression, world-wide in its extent, the approval by Congress of the Jones-Costigan Act, which included sugar as a basic commodity under the provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act, the application of the retroactive provision of which to our Island, has reduced by 240,000 tons of sugar the crop of 1933-34, and by 25% the 1934-35 production;

Whereas, As a result of the application to our Island of the said Agricultural Adjustment Act, a large number of commodities for the maintenance of the people, which are imported from the United States market, have been considerably increased in price, thus aggravating the subsistence problem;

Whereas, According to the provisions of the Jones-Costigan Act, a large portion of the land now under sugar-cane cultivation is to be withdrawn from such cultivation, and consequently, nearly 20,000 laborers will lose their opportunity of work in the cultivation and harvesting of the yield of said lands, thus increasing the number of the unemployed, now that there are but few industries in the Island and no opportunity to secure any profitable occupation to make up for the lockout of the agricultural laborers;

Whereas, The Congress of the United States has enacted a law providing for the establishment, operation and maintenance of foreign-trade zones in ports of entry to the United States, to facilitate and develop foreign commerce, it being required that the establishment of such free zones or open ports be requested by the States, the Territory of Puerto Rico being comprised within the meaning of the term State;

Whereas, It is a generally accepted fact that the Insular public debt of $27,466,000 and the municipal public debt of $16,782,228.13 is a heavy burden on the economy of our people and is by itself an element that hinders the efforts made towards economic reconstruction, which makes it urgently necessary to convert and merge such debt, whose service requirements are becoming too burdensome, specifically because of the fact that the funds for such purposes are derived from special property taxes which in many cases reach exorbitant rates which cannot possibly be reduced, due to the constitutional prohibition to the effect that the value of contracts shall not be impaired;

Whereas, The depression, overwhelming in its effect, has given occasion for the accumulation by the municipalities of Puerto Rico of a floating debt amounting to over $3,000,000;

Whereas, In order to attain the economic rehabilitation of our Island, it is necessary to carry out important public works without which it would be impossible to achieve the development of our agricultural, industrial and commercial wealth, due to the lack of adequate means of communication, of the utilization of the water resources, of an exhaustive organization of our lands to obtain abundant yields, and of means to diffuse among our country people the necessary knowledge as to cultivation of the lands and disposition of the products in the most profitable and convenient way to obtain the best returns therefrom;

Whereas, The Economy Commission of the Legislature of Puerto Rico duly studied the economic-social problem of Puerto Rico in all its aspects, held hearings, carried out investigations, designated the committees which were to submit their conclusions as regards the various aspects of the question under consideration, and arranged and compiled the findings of the committees, embodying them in the Plan herein set forth;

Whereas, The Legislature of Puerto Rico has always shown an earnest desire and a firm resolution fully to cooperate in the task of putting into operation any financial reconstruction plan that might be worked out by the National Administration to further the betterment and progress of the Island of Puerto Rico; and this being an organized noncontiguous Territory of the United States, it must find a remedy for its problems under the protection of the laws approved by Congress,

Now Therefore, Be it resolved by the Senate of Puerto Rico, the House of Representatives Concurring:

To approve, as it is hereby approved, in order that it may serve as a basis for the economic reconstruction of Puerto Rico the Plan herein inserted, setting forth in its various aspects the economic-social problem of the Island.

The Virgin Islands: A Caribbean Lilliput

Lewis, Gordon K., The Virgin Islands: A Caribbean Lilliput, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1972. (Signed by the author for Tom & Joyce Mathews)

Contents:

Preface

Introduction

PART ONE: The Past

1. The Danish Background.
2. 1917: The American Beginnings.
3. 1931: The New Deal Period.
4. 1941: The War Period and After.

PART TWO: The Present

5. The Economy.
6. The Social Milieu: The Native Virgin Islanders.
7. The Social Milieu: The Continentals.
8. The Social Milieu: The French and the Puerto Ricans.
9. The Social Milieu: The West Indian Aliens.
10. Family, Color, and Community.
11. Religion, Education, and Communications.
12. The Machinery of Government.
13. Parties and Politics.
14. The problem of Status.
Index.

A Golden Jubilee: Virgin Islanders on the Go Under the American Flag

Hill Sr., Valdemar A., A Golden Jubilee: Virgin Islanders on the Go Under the American Flag, New York: Carlton Press Inc., 1967.

Valdemar A. Hill, Sr., was born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands, on May 1, 1914. His educational background includes: Charlotte Amalie High School; a summer session in General Economics at Columbia University in 1944; received an A.B. degree in Political Science from McKinley-Roosevelt College, Chicago, in 1947; and obtained an LLB degree from la Salle Extension University, Chicago, in 1952. Mr. Hill entered the local government service as an employee in the Department of Health in 1932. In 1937 he was one of the organizers of the first political party in the Virgin Islands, THE PROGRESSIVE GUIDE. This organization was founded in order to make the masses of people aware of their new responsibilities under the 1936 Organic Act, which granted universal suffrage to the citizens of the Virgin Islands.

Viva Mexico!

Flandrau, Charles Macomb, Viva Mexico!, Mexico: The Mexico Press, 1950.

Available online.

Charles Macomb Flandrau (1871-1938), author and essayist, was born on December 9, 1871 in St. Paul, Minnesota.
(…)
Flandrau established himself as an author with Harvard Episodes (1897), a book about contemporary college life whose success led to a second book about college, The Diary of a Freshman(1901). After an extended visit to his brother's Mexican coffee plantation, he wrote Viva Mexico! (1908), a travel book critically acclaimed for its observations of social customs and political life under Mexican president Porfirio Díaz. Flandrau’s other books include Prejudices (1911), Loquacities (1931) and Sophomores Abroad (1935).

The Stricken Land

Tugwell, Rexford Guy, The Stricken Land, Garden City, NY: Doubleday & Co, 1947.

Available for download.

Reviews online.

Wikipedia:

After his stint as governor, Tugwell returned to teaching at a variety of institutions. He had years of service at the University of Chicago, where he helped develop their planning program. He moved to Greenbelt, Maryland, one of the new suburbs designed and built by the Resettlement Administration under his direction.
…
During this time, Tugwell wrote several books, including a biography of Grover Cleveland, subtitled: A Biography of the President Whose Uncompromising Honesty and Integrity Failed America in a Time of Crisis (1968). His biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt was entitled FDR: An Architect of an Era. A Stricken Land was his memoir about his years in Puerto Rico. This book was reprinted in 2007 by the Muñoz Marín Foundation.

The West Indies: The Federal Negotiations

Mordecai, John Sir, The West Indies: the federal negotiations, London: Allen & Unwin, 1968.

Reviewed in Social and Economic Studies © 1969.

Reviewed in The Western Political Quarterly © 1969.

Reviewed in The Journal of Developing Areas © 1970.

From the inner-sleeve:

This is the history of Federation in the British West Indies since the 1920’s, in itself a fascinating story full of strong and colourful personalities; at the same time it offers an incisive analysis of the reasons why Federations have proved so unstable in the post-war world. It is unusual to have the story from a man who was both without any narrow allegiance and at the centre of events from 1952 up to the very end. Sir John Mordecai was in daily contact throughout with the leading figures and the crises surrounding them. He served as Secretary-General of the West Indies Regional Economic Committee which prepared the organic structure for political union and as Federal Secretary and chief official when parliamentary government and a Council of Ministers took control in 1958.

The Virgin Islands: From Naval Base to New Deal

Evans, Luther Harris, The Virgin Islands: From Naval Base to New Deal, Ann Arbor, Michigan: Edwards, 1945.

Reviewed in Political Science Quarterly © 1945.

Reviewed in The American Political Science Review © 1945.

From the inner-sleeve:

The author Luther H. Evans, Ph.D., who is an authority on mandates and related subjects in international law, is Chief Assistant Librarian of the Library of Congress. Before he assumed his present duties he was National Director of the Historical Records Survey. While he was connected with Princeton University, its School of Public and International Affairs financed his first summer visit in the Virgin Islands.

Symposium on the Geography of Puerto Rico

Jones, Clarence Fielden & Rafael Picó, Eds., Symposium on the Geography of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras: University of Puerto Rico Press, 1955.

Reviewed in Geographical Review © 1956.

See also REPORT ON THE RURAL LAND CLASSIFICATION PROGRAM OF PUERTO RICO, 1949-1952.

From the Preface:

The Symposium of Papers on the Geography of Puerto Rico is an outgrowth of the work done in the Rural Land Classification Program between early 1949 and August 1951 and the subsequent research and writing of the participants in the field work. The scope and extent of the field work involved in the Rural Land Classification Program of Puerto Rico have not been matched elsewhere in the tropics. According to Dr. Rafael Picó, Chairman of the Puerto Rico Planning Board, “The large scale of mapping and the thoroughness of the survey, coupled with the diverse physical characteristics of the island, make this program unique.”1

St. Croix under Seven Flags

Lewisohn, Florence, St. Croix under Seven Flags, Hollywood, Florida: Dukane Press, 1970.

Obituary.

From the inner-sleeve:

St. Croix under Seven Flags reflects the turbulence and sweeping changes of five centuries in the West Indies. This one small island, formerly the Danish West Indies and now one of the U.S. Virgin Islands, has flown the flags of many nations: Spain, England, Holland, France, Denmark and the United States as well as the ensign of the empire building Knights of Malta who for a few years exploited the island in one of history’s strange quirks.

Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-century Puerto Rico

Bergad, Laird W., Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-century Puerto Rico, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.

Reviewed in Agricultural History © 1984.

Reviewed in Nieuwe West-Indische Gids / New West Indian Guide © 1985.

Laird W. Bergad is Distinguished Professor of Latin American and Caribbean history in the Department of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies at Lehman College and the Ph.D. Program in History at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He was the founding director of Lehman College's interdisciplinary program in Latin American and Caribbean studies and Chair of the Department of Latin American and Puerto Rican Studies, and he served on the executive committees of the CUNY/Cuba (and later Caribbean) Scholarly Exchange Program and the CUNY-University of Puerto Rico Exchange. Bergad is the founding and current director of the CUNY Center for Latin American, Caribbean, and Latino Studies at the Graduate Center. His previously published books include Coffee and the Growth of Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico; Cuban Rural Society in the Nineteenth Century: The Social and Economic History of Monoculture in Matanzas; The Cuban Slave Market, 1790 1880 (co-author); The Demographic and Economic History of Slavery in Minas Gerais, Brazil, 1720 1888; and The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States.

Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura, núm 3, vol. 2, 1965

Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura, núm 3, vol. 2, 1965.

El Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura es la publicación del Departamento de Historia de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, sede Bogotá. Fue fundada en 1963 por Jaime Jaramillo Uribe, y representó un paso importante en el propósito de consolidar la disciplina, al ser la primera revista histórica surgida en el mundo universitario y la segunda en el país después del Boletín de Historia y Antigüedades, de la Academia Colombiana de Historia.

Sumario:

I. Artículos:

Algunas consideraciones sobre la evolución demográfica en la Provincia de Tunja, por Juan Friede.

Mestisaje y diferenciación social en el Nuevo Reino de Granada en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII, por Jaime Jaramillo Uribe.

Significación de los antioqueños en el desarrollo económico colombiano: un examen crítico de las tesis de Everett Hagen, por Frank Safford.

Reseña del arte en Colombia durante el siglo XIX, por Eugenio Barney Cabrera.

La importancia de los grabados en la cultura neogranadina, por Santiago Sebastián.

II. Documentos:

Descripción de la Provincia del Darién a Norte y Sur. Medios de poblarla al Sur y discurso reflexivo sobre la Conquista, por el Teniente del Batallón de Panamá Dn. Manuel García de Villalba.

Expediciones de conquista y pacificación de los indios chimilas en el siglo XVIII.

I. Cuestionario para probar hidalguía por testimonios.

II. Cuestionario para probar la pertenencia a casta de mulatos o mestizos en pleito por ofensas al honor.

III. Bibliografía Colombiana.

The Modern Culture of Latin America: Society and the Artist

Franco, Jean, The Modern Culture of Latin America: society and the artist, New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1967.

Reviewed in the Journal of Inter-American Studies © 1969.

Jean Franco (born 31 March 1924) is a British-born academic and literary critic known for her pioneering work on Latin American literature. Educated at Manchester and London, she has taught at London, Essex (where she was the university's first professor of Latin American literature),[1] and Stanford, and is currently professor emerita at Columbia University.

Contents:

Introduction: The Artist and Social Conscience

1. A Symbolic Revolt: The Modernist Movement

2. The Select Minority: Arielism and Criollismo, 1900 – 1918

3. Back to the Roots: I Cultural Nationalism

4. Back to the Roots: II The Indian, the Negro, the Land

5. Art and the Political Struggle

6. Cosmopolitan or Universal?

7. The Writer as Conscience of his Country

8. The Writer and the National Situation

In Conclusion

Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971

Berle, Adolf A., Beatrice Bishop Berle, Travis Beal Jacobs & Max Ascoli, Navigating the Rapids, 1918-1971, New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1973.

Reviewed by The American Political Science Review © 1977.

Reviewed by Kirkus Review.

Adolf Augustus Berle, Jr. … was a lawyer, educator, author, and U.S. diplomat.[1] He was the author of The Modern Corporation and Private Property, a groundbreaking work on corporate governance, and an important member of U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt's "Brain Trust".

Pedro Martínez: A Mexican Peasant and his Family

Lewis, Oscar, Pedro Martínez: a Mexican peasant and his family, New York: Random House, 1964.

Reviewed by Carlos Fuentes.

Excerpt from the inner sleeve:

Pedro Martínez is a Mexican peasant, now over seventy. This is the story of his life and of the lives of his wife and children, told in his own words and, from time to time, in theirs. Like Professor Lewis’ earlier book The Children of Sanchez, Pedro Martínez is at once an anthropological study of great force and subtlety and a literary masterpiece; a book in which the details and structure of the lives of peasants are accurately and minutely reported, but a book too in which these lives present themselves with the immediate reality of a work of art.

Oscar Lewis, an American anthropologist, was renowned for his studies of poverty in Mexico and Puerto Rico and for his controversial concept of "the culture of poverty." After graduating from Columbia University, where he studied under Ruth Benedict, Franz Boas, and Margaret Mead, his first major book, Life in a Mexican Village (1951), was a restudy of Robert Redfield's village of Tepoztlan, which reached a number of conclusions opposed to those reached by Redfield. Much of the controversy over the culture of poverty disappeared when Lewis labeled it a subculture; ironically, reactionaries have used the concept to blame the poor for their poverty, whereas Lewis believed the poor to be victims. Many of his books are based on tape recordings of family members, a technique in which Lewis was a pioneer.

Aspectos de la Vida Social en Cartagena de Indias Durante el Seiscientos

Tejado Fernández, Manuel, Aspectos de la vida social en Cartagena de Indias durante el seiscientos, Sevilla, España: Escuela de estudios hispano-americanos, 1954.

Reseñada en Bulletin Hispanique.

Índice General:

Introducción.

I. De las fuentes.

II. Cartagena de Indias y el Tribunal de la Inquisición.

Cap. I. Hechiceras, brujas, herbolarias… Esbozo histórico.

Cap. II. Una hechicera distinguida: Lorenza de Acereto.

Cap. III. Amplitud social de la hechicería y sus prácticas.

Cap. IV. Los brujos procesados.

Cap. V. Características de la brujería cartagenera.

Cap. VI. Judíos en Cartagena de Indias.

Cap. VII. Ritual del Judaísmo neogranadino.

Cap. VIII. El Clero y otras gentes.

Prologo – Notas para un ensayo de psicología social americana.

Apéndices.

El “procedimiento” en la Inquisición de Cartagena de Indias.

Apéndice documental.

Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal

Sternsher, Bernard, Rexford Tugwell and the New Deal, New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1964.

Reviewed in The American Historical Review © 1965.

Reviewed in World Affairs.

Excerpt from the inner sleeve:

This book is the first comprehensive investigation, both as to scope and source materials, of Tugwell’s activities in the years 1932 – 1936.

Tugwell served as the last appointed American Governor of Puerto Rico, from 1941 to 1946. He worked with the legislature to create the Puerto Rico Planning, Urbanization, and Zoning Board in 1942. Tugwell supported Puerto Rican self-government through amendment to the Organic Act in 1948. He publicly supported Luis Muñoz Marín’s Popular Democratic Party, the PPD, which wanted a Commonwealth status. As he prepared to retire from the Governorship, Tugwell was instrumental in getting the first Puerto Rican appointed to the job, Jesús T. Piñero, then serving as Resident Commissioner in Washington, D.C. Tugwell also served as Chancellor of the University of Puerto Rico.

Latin America: A General History

Fagg, John Edwin, Latin America: A General History, 2nd Edition, New York: The Macmillan Company, 1969.

Reviewed in International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs 1944-) © 1964.

Excerpt from the inner sleeve:

John Edwin Fagg received his B.A. from the University of Texas and his H.A. and Ph.D. in History at the University of Chicago. He is currently Professor of History and Chairman of the Department, Washington Square College, at New York University and has been director of the Portuguese-Brazilian Center. Professor Fagg was a major contributor to the history of the Army Air Forces in World War II and has published books on modern Spain, Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as well as studies on Columbus, Rafael Altamira, Sir Charles Webster, Isabel II, and the Caribbean.

See also his obituary.

Life in Mexico During a Residence of Two Years in That Country

Calderón de la Barca, Madame, Life in Mexico during a residence of two years in that country, Mexico: Ediciones Toleca, 1952.

Reviewed in Bulletin of the American Geographical Society.

Available online HERE, HERE,HERE, HERE, and HERE.