New Books in Homer July 20, 2007

Hi folks:

Here are the latest additions in HOMER. Please feel free to check them out. Also, let me know what do you think about these books or any book that we acquire at the Library. Your comments help me to do a better job to acquire the materials that you need for your research or for teaching.


Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Bolivia--Economy, Globalization

• Gill, Lesley. Teetering on the rim : global restructuring, daily life, and the armed retreat of the Bolivian state. New York : Columbia University Press, c2000. [Notes from the publisher] Focusing on an impoverished city on the periphery of La Paz, the Bolivian capital, Lesley Gill examines the ways in which neoliberal policies reorder social relations among poor men and women—and between them and the state. These vulnerable low-income people teetering on the edge of survival are forced to contend not only with the state but with each other as well as an array of international organizations to get what they need to continue to live. In an effort to understand ordinary people's changing sense of what is, and is not, possible, collectively and individually, after more than a decade of economic restructuring, Teetering on the Rim reveals the vast and relentless changes wrought in the fabric of social life and offers an instructive example of just what is wrong with the global economic order.

Cuba--History, Cold War

• Wright, Robert A. Three nights in Havana : Pierre Trudeau, Fidel Castro and the Cold War world. Toronto : HarperCollins, c2007. [Notes from the publisher] In this fascinating first-ever portrait of an unusual relationship between two enigmatic world leaders, author and historian Robert Wright brings to life three critical days when Canadian politics played on the international stage. Wright describes how, long before he was prime minister, [Pierre] Trudeau had attempted to canoe to Cuba, and how [Fidel] Castro visited Montreal as a young revolutionary, later welcoming FLQ terrorists to his tiny island. In a revealing look at their personalities and political ideologies, Wright shows how the two leaders, despite their official positions as allies of rival empires, had determinedly refused to exist merely as handmaidens to the United States. This fact, he asserts, is what brought them to power, and what drew them to each other.

California--Circular Migration, Anthropology, Farmworkers, Mexico--U.S. Border relations

• Ann Aurelia López. The Farmworkers' Journey. Berkeley : University of California Press, c2007. [Notes from publisher] Illuminating the dark side of economic globalization, this book gives a rare insider's view of the migrant farmworkers' binational circuit that stretches from the west central Mexico countryside to central California. Over the course of ten years, Ann Aurelia López conducted a series of intimate interviews with farmworkers and their families along the migrant circuit. She deftly weaves their voices together with up-to-date research to portray a world hidden from most Americans--a world of inescapable poverty that has worsened considerably since NAFTA was implemented in 1994. In fact, today it has become nearly impossible for rural communities in Mexico to continue to farm the land sustainably, leaving few survival options except the perilous border crossing to the United States. The Farmworkers' Journey brings together for the first time the many facets of this issue into a comprehensive and accessible narrative: how corporate agribusiness operates, how binational institutions and laws promote the subjugation of Mexican farmworkers, how migration affects family life, how genetically modified corn strains pouring into Mexico from the United States are affecting farmers, how migrants face exploitation from employers, and more. A must-read for all Americans, The Farmworkers' Journey traces the human consequences of our policy decisions.