Cocaine, Death Squads, and the War on Terror

U.S. Imperialism and Class Struggle in Colombia

Drew Cottle, Oliver Viller

Since the late 1990s, the United States has funneled billions of dollars in aid to Colombia, ostensibly to combat the illicit drug trade and State Department-designated terrorist groups. The result has been a spiral of violence that continues to take lives and destabilize Colombian society. This book asks an obvious question: are the official reasons given for the wars on drugs and terror in Colombia plausible, or are there other, deeper factors at work? Scholars Villar and Cottle… (more information)

Drug War Mexico

Politics, Neoliberalism and Violence in the New Narcoeconomy

Peter Watt, Roberto Zepeda

Mexico is a country in crisis. Capitalizing on weakened public institutions, widespread unemployment, a state of lawlessness and the strengthening of links between Mexican and Colombian drug cartels, narcotrafficking in the country has flourished during the post-1982 neoliberal era. In fact, it has become Mexico’s biggest source of revenue, as well as its most violent, with an astonishing 9,000 drug-related executions in 2009 alone. In response, Mexican president Felipe Calderón,… (more information)

José Marti

Mentor of the Cuban Revolution

John M. Kirk

In 1953, Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro stated that the “intellectual author” of his revolution was the nineteenth-century writer and revolutionary José Martí. An advocate of social justice, economic democracy and anti-imperialism, Martí wrote extensively about the future of a “Cuba libre,” freed from Spain’s rule, and is celebrated as one of Latin America’s most important thinkers. Based on a detailed analysis of the twenty-five volumes… (more information)

Latina/Chicana Mothering

Dorsía Smith Silva

Latina/Chicana Mothering provides a glimpse into the journey of mothering within the diverse spectrum of the histories, struggles, and stories of Latinas and Chicanas. Here, the Latina/Chicana mothering experience emphasizes the need for various conceptualizations of mothering, especially in regard to the conditions which shape the lives of Latinas and Chicanas, such as race, gender, sexuality, culture, language, social status, religion, kinship, location, and migration. The book has four sections… (more information)

Right-wing Politics in the New Latin America

Reaction and Revolt

Edited by Francisco Dominguez, Geraldine Lievesley, Steve Ludlum

The focus for students of Latin America in the past decade has been on the political forces of the left and the so-called ‘pink tide’ presidencies attempting to bring about social and economic change in the region. However, there has been far less attention paid to the rightwing political forces resisting such change. Such opposition is being orchestrated by political parties, business, the private media and other social and cultural institutions and is linked to the ‘soft power… (more information)

Social Movements and Leftist Governments in Latin America

Confrontation or Co-option?

Edited by Carlos Oliva Campos, Garry Prevost, Harry E. Vanden

In recent years, the simultaneous development of prominent social movements and the election of left and centre-left governments has radically altered the political landscape in Latin America. These social movements have ranged from the community based ‘piqueteros’ of Argentina that brought down three governments in the space of a month in 2001 to the indigenous movements in Ecuador and Bolivia that were instrumental in toppling five governments in the last decade. And in the cases of… (more information)