Latin America - Culture and Politics
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Venezuela In Focus
Venezuela has been blessed and cursed by oil. Once Latin America's wealthiest country, its petrodollars paid for political stability, dramatic modernisation and rampant corruption. But the boom years are now long gone and Venezuelans face poverty and growing social conflict. Despite its political wo...
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Bolivia In Focus
Often caricatured in Europe and the US as the land of coups and cocaine, Bolivia is a country full of rich traditions stemming from before the arrival of Columbus. In the most Indian of Latin American nations, pre-Conquest lifestyles, languages and dress have adapted to survive centuries of oppressi...
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On The Line
The US-Mexican border is a unique meeting point of the first and third worlds. Every day thousands of Mexicans run the gauntlet of the US Border Patrol to reach the promised lands of California and Texas. On the Mexican side half a million people, mainly young women, earn a dollar an hour or less, t...
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For Richer, For Poorer
Harry Browne, Beth Sims, Tom Barry
Whatever the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the US and Mexico are involved in a rapid and unstoppable process of economic integration. Driven by the changing global production systems of US and other transnational corporations, the two countries' economies are now more cl...
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The Latin American City
Since the 19S0s, Latin America has been transformed from a rural to an urban society. The region now contains some of the world's biggest cities, headed by Mexico City with its 20 million inhabitants. In all but five Latin American countries, more people now live in towns and cities than in the coun...
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Women in Brazil
Brazilian women are fighting back against machismo and racism, and against exploitation in factory and farm, in a myriad of grassroots organisations. This mosaic of articles, poems and interviews paints a vivid picture of life for women in Brazil's shanty towns and peasant villages.
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Companeras
An upsurge of women's activism across Latin America has provoked vigorous discussions about feminism, machismo and the whole process of social change. Companeras brings together activists from thirteen different countries to speak directly about their experiences and aspirations in the women's movem...
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Afrocuba
Pedro Pérez Sarduy, Jean Stubbs
What is it like to be black in Cuba? Does racism exist in a revolutionary society that claims to have abolished it? How does the legacy of slavery and segregation live on in today’s Cuba? Essays, poetry, extracts from novels, anthropological studies and political analysis are brought together by ed...
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The Latin American Left
Recent developments in Europe have elicited assertions that the historical movement of the Left is at a standstil. The evidence from Latin America, however, suggests that the Left is far from being marginalized. In eight country studies, contributors examine the lessons drawn from the failure of gue...
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Out of The Shadows
Since the early 1970s the lives of South America's women have been transformed by military rule. In Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay, women were at the forefront of the opposition to dictators such as Chile's General Pinochet and Paraguay's Alfredo Stroessner. New "social movements" of shanty...