A leading scholar sheds light on the experiences of ordinary Cubans in the unseating of the dictator Fulgencio Batista In this important and timely volume, one of today's foremost experts on Cuban history and politics fills a significant gap in the literature, illuminating how Cuba's electoral democracy underwent a tumultuous transformation into a military dictatorship. Lillian Guerra draws on her years of research in newly opened archives and on personal interviews to shed light on the men and women of Cuba who participated in mass mobilization and civic activism to establish social movements in their quest for social and racial justice and for more accountable leadership. Driven by a sense of duty toward la patria (the fatherland) and their dedication to heroism and martyrdom, these citizens built a powerful underground revolutionary culture that shaped and witnessed the overthrow of Batista in the late 1950s. Beautifully illustrated with archival photographs, this volume is a stunning addition to Latin American history and politics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780300175530 20180521

• Introduction
• Mestizo towns
• Family and legal order
• Haciendas
• Indigenous towns
• Dictatorship
• conclusion : law and exception in the making of modern Mexico.

"Liberalism as Utopia challenges widespread perceptions about the weakness of Mexico's nineteenth-century state. Schaefer argues that after the War of Independence non- elite Mexicans - peasants, day laborers, artisans, local merchants - pioneered an egalitarian form of legal rule by serving in the town governments and civic militias that became the local faces of the state's coercive authority. These institutions were effective because they embodied patriarchal norms of labor and care for the family that were premised on the legal equality of male, adult citizens"-- Provided by publisher.

• Contents and Abstracts1Sonhos d'Ouro chapter abstractThis chapter describes and analyzes the novel Sonhos d'Ouro, by Jose de Alencar. Drawing on literary and social history, the chapter explores the characters and settings in this important novel in order to uncover Alencar's distinctive vision for social integration and the reconciliation of metropolitan wealth and provincial virtue. The character of Guida Soares is shown to represent the caprice and, concomitantly, the latent potential goodness inherent in capital honestly accumulated-- her counterpart, Ricardo Nunes, is understood as Alencar's proxy for a virtuous and idealistic young man from the provinces. Together, their story represents a version of Bildung wherein an alternative mode of social integration is made possible.
• 2Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas chapter abstractThis chapter explores the novel Memorias Postumas de Bras Cubas, by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, from literary and historical perspectives. This reading of the novel, long considered a masterpiece of world literature, emphasizes its relation to the literary field in which it was embedded, within and beyond Brazil, as well as the social historical dimensions of the urban space therein depicted. The novel is placed into context with works by Balzac and Flaubert-extending and modifying previous readings that emphasized its sui generis, Brazilian content. Additionally, the chapter shows how Bras Cubas can be read alongside Sonhos d'Ouro-highlighting the different answers to the problem of social integration provided by Machado de Assis and Jose de Alencar.
• 3O Coruja chapter abstractThis chapter analyzes the novel O Coruja, by Aluisio Azevedo. A more obscure novel than those discussed in the first two chapters, this work by Azevedo is also read in both literary and social historical perspective, allowing for an exploration of the themes of environmental determinism and social hierarchies in Rio de Janeiro during the 1880s.
• 4Sentimental Educations chapter abstractThis chapter develops an interpretation of the problem of the individual and his or her integration into society. Building upon the foundation laid in the first three chapters, this analysis engages a broader range of novels and focuses on the problem of comportment in social settings. History and social theory combine to offer a reading of nineteenth-century Brazilian novels that highlight the key milestones and challenges associated with the growth and development of fictional protagonists, including the themes of education and career.
• 5Marriage and Money chapter abstractThis chapter examines the way marriage and money intersected in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro as depicted in novels and against a backdrop of social historical data. Using parish records and estate inventories, the analysis shows how the realistic commitments of nineteenth-century authors echoed and reproduced an image of social structure surrounding the critical issues of wealth and family in Rio de Janeiro.
• 6Problems of Spatial Practice chapter abstractThis chapter reads nineteenth-century novels set in Rio de Janeiro in terms of spatial practices. Through a combination of close and distant reading, novels are shown to contain detailed scripts referring to spatial practices ranging from the open spaces of sociability, such as the street and theater, to the closed spaces of the house. Within these spaces, the disposition and movement of characters is shown to reflect core aspects of social reality and the strategic and tactical maneuverings available to individuals of varied class status, age, and gender.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Reading Rio de Janeiro blazes a new trail for understanding the cultural history of 19th-century Brazil. To bring the social fabric of Rio de Janeiro alive, Zephyr Frank flips the historian's usual interest in literature as a source of evidence and, instead, uses the historical context to understand literature. By focusing on the theme of social integration through the novels of Jose de Alencar, Machado de Assis, and Aluisio Azevedo, the author draws the reader's attention to the way characters are caught between conflicting moral imperatives as they encounter the newly mobile, capitalist, urban society, so different from the slave-based plantations of the past. Some characters grow and triumph in this setting; others are defeated by it. Though literature infuses this social history of 19th-century Rio, it is replete with maps, graphs, non-fiction sources, and statistical data and analysis that are the historian's stock-in-trade. By connecting a literary understanding of the social problems with the quantitative data traditional historical methods provide, Frank creates a richer and deeper understanding of society in 19th-century Rio.
(source: Nielsen Book Data) 9780804757447 20180611

• Technological and political visions
• Cybernetics and socialism
• cybernetics in the battle for production
• Designing a network
• Constructing the liberty machine
• The October strike
• Cybersyn goes public
• Conclusion : technology, politics, history.