The Scramble For The Amazon And The Lost Paradise Of Euclides Da Cunha

Download The Scramble For The Amazon And The Lost Paradise Of Euclides Da Cunha full books in PDF, epub, and Kindle. Read online The Scramble For The Amazon And The Lost Paradise Of Euclides Da Cunha ebook anywhere anytime directly on your device. Fast Download speed and no annoying ads. We cannot guarantee that every ebooks is available!

The Scramble for the Amazon and the "Lost Paradise" of Euclides da Cunha

Author : Susanna B. Hecht
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226322815
Total Pages : 629 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Scramble for the Amazon and the "Lost Paradise" of Euclides da Cunha by : Susanna B. Hecht

Download or read book The Scramble for the Amazon and the "Lost Paradise" of Euclides da Cunha written by Susanna B. Hecht and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-05-09 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fortunes of the late nineteenth century’s imperial and industrial powers depended on a single raw material—rubber—with only one source: the Amazon basin. And so began the scramble for the Amazon—a decades-long conflict that found Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States fighting with and against the new nations of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil for the forest’s riches. In the midst of this struggle, Euclides da Cunha, engineer, journalist, geographer, political theorist, and one of Brazil’s most celebrated writers, led a survey expedition to the farthest reaches of the river, among the world’s most valuable, dangerous, and little-known landscapes. The Scramble for the Amazon tells the story of da Cunha’s terrifying journey, the unfinished novel born from it, and the global strife that formed the backdrop for both. Haunted by his broken marriage, da Cunha trekked through a beautiful region thrown into chaos by guerrilla warfare, starving migrants, and native slavery. All the while, he worked on his masterpiece, a nationalist synthesis of geography, philosophy, biology, and journalism he named the Lost Paradise. Da Cunha intended his epic to unveil the Amazon’s explorers, spies, natives, and brutal geopolitics, but, as Susanna B. Hecht recounts, he never completed it—his wife’s lover shot him dead upon his return. At once the biography of an extraordinary writer, a masterly chronicle of the social, political, and environmental history of the Amazon, and a superb translation of the remaining pieces of da Cunha’s project, The Scramble for the Amazon is a work of thrilling intellectual ambition.

The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha

Author : Susanna B. Hecht
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 0226322831
Total Pages : 629 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (263 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha by : Susanna B. Hecht

Download or read book The Scramble for the Amazon and the Lost Paradise of Euclides da Cunha written by Susanna B. Hecht and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-05-14 with total page 629 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A “compelling and elegantly written” history of the fight for the Amazon basin and the work of a brilliant but overlooked Brazilian intellectual (Times Literary Supplement, UK). The fortunes of the late nineteenth century’s imperial powers depended on a single raw material—rubber—with only one source: the Amazon basin. This scenario ignited a decades-long conflict that found Britain, France, Belgium, and the United States fighting with and against the new nations of Peru, Bolivia, and Brazil for the forest’s riches. In the midst of this struggle, the Brazilian author and geographer Euclides da Cunha led a survey expedition to the farthest reaches of the river. The Scramble for the Amazon tells the story of da Cunha’s terrifying journey, the unfinished novel born from it, and the global strife that formed the backdrop for both. Haunted by his broken marriage, da Cunha trekked through a beautiful region thrown into chaos by guerrilla warfare, starving migrants, and native slavery. All the while, he worked on his masterpiece, a nationalist synthesis of geography, philosophy, biology, and journalism entitled Lost Paradise. Hoping to unveil the Amazon’s explorers, spies, natives, and brutal geopolitics, Da Cunha was killed by his wife’s lover before he could complete his epic work. once the biography of Da Cunha, a translation of his unfinished work, and a chronicle of the social, political, and environmental history of the Amazon, The Scramble for the Amazon is a work of thrilling intellectual ambition.

Reflections on Imagination

Author : Mark Harris
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317069609
Total Pages : 338 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (17 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Reflections on Imagination by : Mark Harris

Download or read book Reflections on Imagination written by Mark Harris and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-03 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this innovative volume, anthropologists turn their attention to a topic that has rarely figured as a focus of concerted investigation and yet which can be described as an intrinsic aspect of all human knowing and part of all processes by which human beings process information about themselves, their identities, their environments and their relations: the imagination. How do anthropologists use imagination in coming to know their research subjects? How might they, and how should they, use their imagination? And how do research subjects themselves understand, describe, justify and limit their use of the imagination? Presenting a range of case studies from a variety of locations including the UK, US, Africa, East Asia and South America, this collection offers a comparative exploration of how imagination has been conceptualized and understood in a range of analytical traditions, with regard to issues of both methodology and ethnomethodology. With emphasis not on abstraction but on imagination as activity, technique and subject situated in the middle of lives, Reflections on Imagination sheds new light on imagination as a universal capacity and practice - something to which human beings attend whenever they make sense of their environments and situate their life-projects in these environments - the means by which worlds come to be.

Understories: Plants and Culture in the American Tropics

Author : Lesley Wylie
Publisher : Liverpool University Press
ISBN 13 : 1837645000
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (376 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Understories: Plants and Culture in the American Tropics by : Lesley Wylie

Download or read book Understories: Plants and Culture in the American Tropics written by Lesley Wylie and published by Liverpool University Press. This book was released on 2023-11-15 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understories: Plants and Culture in the American Tropics establishes the central importance of plants to the histories and cultures of the extended tropical region stretching from the U.S. South to Argentina. Through close examination of a number of significant plants – cacao, mate, agave, the hevea brasilensis, kudzu, the breadfruit, soy, and the ceiba pentandra, among others – this volume shows that vegetal life has played a fundamental role in shaping societies and in formulating cultural and environmental imaginaries in and beyond the region. Drawing on a wide range of cultural traditions and forms across literature, popular music, art, and film, the essays included in this volume transcend regional and linguistic boundaries to bring together multiple plant-centred histories or ‘understories’ – narratives that until now have been marginalized or gone unnoticed. Attending not only to the significant influence of humans on plants, but also of plants on humans, this book offers new understandings of how colonization, globalization, and power were, and continue to be, imbricated with nature in the American tropics.

Amazonia in the Anthropocene

Author : Nicholas C. Kawa
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1477308016
Total Pages : 203 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (773 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Amazonia in the Anthropocene by : Nicholas C. Kawa

Download or read book Amazonia in the Anthropocene written by Nicholas C. Kawa and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2016-05-10 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Widespread human alteration of the planet has led many scholars to claim that we have entered a new epoch in geological time: the Anthropocene, an age dominated by humanity. This ethnography is the first to directly engage the Anthropocene, tackling its problems and paradoxes from the vantage point of the world’s largest tropical rainforest. Drawing from extensive ethnographic research, Nicholas Kawa examines how pre-Columbian Amerindians and contemporary rural Amazonians have shaped their environment, describing in vivid detail their use and management of the region’s soils, plants, and forests. At the same time, he highlights the ways in which the Amazonian environment resists human manipulation and control—a vital reminder in this time of perceived human dominance. Written in engaging, accessible prose, Amazonia in the Anthropocene offers an innovative contribution to debates about humanity’s place on the planet, encouraging deeper ecocentric thinking and a more inclusive vision of ecology for the future.

Moving Crops and the Scales of History

Author : Francesca Bray
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300257252
Total Pages : 353 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (2 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Moving Crops and the Scales of History by : Francesca Bray

Download or read book Moving Crops and the Scales of History written by Francesca Bray and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2023-01-01 with total page 353 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold redefinition of historical inquiry based on the "cropscape"--the people, creatures, technologies, ideas, and places that surround a crop Human efforts to move crops from one place to another have been a key driving force in history. Crops have been on the move for millennia, from wildlands into fields, from wetlands to dry zones, from one imperial colony to another. This book is a bold but approachable attempt to redefine historical inquiry based on the "cropscape": the assemblage of people, places, creatures, technologies, and other elements that form around a crop. The cropscape is a method of reconnecting the global with the local, the longue durée with microhistory, and people, plants, and places with abstract concepts such as tastes, ideas, skills, politics, and economic forces. Through investigating a range of contrasting cropscapes spanning millennia and the globe, the authors break open traditional historical structures of period, geography, and direction to glean insight into previously invisible actors and forces.

In Search of the Amazon

Author : Seth Garfield
Publisher : Duke University Press
ISBN 13 : 0822377179
Total Pages : 358 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (223 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis In Search of the Amazon by : Seth Garfield

Download or read book In Search of the Amazon written by Seth Garfield and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-02-03 with total page 358 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicling the dramatic history of the Brazilian Amazon during the Second World War, Seth Garfield provides fresh perspectives on contemporary environmental debates. His multifaceted analysis explains how the Amazon became the object of geopolitical rivalries, state planning, media coverage, popular fascination, and social conflict. In need of rubber, a vital war material, the United States spent millions of dollars to revive the Amazon's rubber trade. In the name of development and national security, Brazilian officials implemented public programs to engineer the hinterland's transformation. Migrants from Brazil's drought-stricken Northeast flocked to the Amazon in search of work. In defense of traditional ways of life, longtime Amazon residents sought to temper outside intervention. Garfield's environmental history offers an integrated analysis of the struggles among distinct social groups over resources and power in the Amazon, as well as the repercussions of those wartime conflicts in the decades to come.

Governing the Rainforest

Author : Eve Z. Bratman
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 0190949384
Total Pages : 373 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (99 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Governing the Rainforest by : Eve Z. Bratman

Download or read book Governing the Rainforest written by Eve Z. Bratman and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 373 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sustainable development is among the foremost ideas that guide societal aspirations around the world. This text interrogates the concept through a critical lens, examining both its history and the trajectory of its manifestations in the Brazilian Amazon.

The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities

Author : Ursula Heise
Publisher : Taylor & Francis
ISBN 13 : 1317660196
Total Pages : 507 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (176 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities by : Ursula Heise

Download or read book The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities written by Ursula Heise and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2017-01-06 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Routledge Companion to the Environmental Humanities provides a comprehensive, transnational, and interdisciplinary map to the field, offering a broad overview of its founding principles while providing insight into exciting new directions for future scholarship. Articulating the significance of humanistic perspectives for our collective social engagement with ecological crises, the volume explores the potential of the environmental humanities for organizing humanistic research, opening up new forms of interdisciplinarity, and shaping public debate and policies on environmental issues. Sections cover: The Anthropocene and the Domestication of Earth Posthumanism and Multispecies Communities Inequality and Environmental Justice Decline and Resilience: Environmental Narratives, History, and Memory Environmental Arts, Media, and Technologies The State of the Environmental Humanities The first of its kind, this companion covers essential issues and themes, necessarily crossing disciplines within the humanities and with the social and natural sciences. Exploring how the environmental humanities contribute to policy and action concerning some of the key intellectual, social, and environmental challenges of our times, the chapters offer an ideal guide to this rapidly developing field.

Landscapes of Inequity

Author : Nicholas A. Robins
Publisher : U of Nebraska Press
ISBN 13 : 1496208021
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (962 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Landscapes of Inequity by : Nicholas A. Robins

Download or read book Landscapes of Inequity written by Nicholas A. Robins and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 2020-07-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The natural wealth of the Amazon and Andes has long attracted fortune seekers, from explorers, farmers, and gold panners to multimillion-dollar mining, oil and gas, and timber operations. Modern demands for commodities have given rise to new development schemes, including hydroelectric dams, open cast mines, and industrial agricultural operations. The history of human habitation in this region is intimately tied to its rich biodiversity, and the Amazon basin is home to scores of indigenous groups, many of whom have populations so small that their cultural and physical survival is endangered. Landscapes of Inequity explores the debate over rights to and use of resources and addresses fundamental questions that inform the debate in the western Amazon basin, from the Andes Mountains to the tropical lowlands. Beginning with an examination of the divergent conceptual interpretations of environmental justice, the volume explores the issue from two interlocking perspectives: of indigenous peoples and of economic development in a global economy. The volume concludes by examining the efficacy of laws and policies concerning the environment in the region, the viability and range of judicial recourse, and future directions in the field of environmental justice.

Forest Structure, Function and Dynamics in Western Amazonia

Author : Randall W. Myster
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1119090660
Total Pages : 222 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (19 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Forest Structure, Function and Dynamics in Western Amazonia by : Randall W. Myster

Download or read book Forest Structure, Function and Dynamics in Western Amazonia written by Randall W. Myster and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2017-03-20 with total page 222 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Amazon Basin contains the largest and most diverse tropical rainforest in the world. Besides the Andes and the Atlantic Ocean, the rainforest is bounded to the north by the Guiana crystalline shield and to the south by the Brazilian crystalline shield, marked at their edges by cataracts in the rivers and often dominated by grasslands. This book is motivated not just by the Amazon's scientific interest but also by its role in many ecosystem functions critical to life on Earth. These ecosystems are characterized both by their complexity and their interactive, higher-order linkages among both abiotic and biotic components. Within Amazonia, the Western Amazon (west of 65° latitude) is the most pristine and, perhaps, the most complex within the Amazon Basin. This Western Amazon may be broadly divided into non-flooded forests (e.g. terra firme, white sand, palm) and forests flooded with white water (generally referred to as várzea) and with black water (generally referred to as igapó). Here, for the first time, is a book devoted entirely to Western Amazonia, containing chapters by scientists at the forefront of their own areas of expertise. It should be a valuable resource for all future researchers and scholars who venture into Western Amazonia, as it continues to be one of the most beautiful, mysterious, remote and important ecosystems on Earth.

American Mirror

Author : Roberto Saba
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691202699
Total Pages : 392 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis American Mirror by : Roberto Saba

Download or read book American Mirror written by Roberto Saba and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2024-12-17 with total page 392 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How slave emancipation transformed capitalism in the United States and Brazil In the nineteenth century, the United States and Brazil were the largest slave societies in the Western world. The former enslaved approximately four million people, the latter nearly two million. Slavery was integral to the production of agricultural commodities for the global market, and governing elites feared the system’s demise would ruin their countries. Yet, when slavery ended in the United States and Brazil, in 1865 and 1888 respectively, what resulted was immediate and continuous economic progress. In American Mirror, Roberto Saba investigates how American and Brazilian reformers worked together to ensure that slave emancipation would advance the interests of capital. Saba explores the methods through which antislavery reformers fostered capitalist development in a transnational context. From the 1850s to the 1880s, this coalition of Americans and Brazilians—which included diplomats, engineers, entrepreneurs, journalists, merchants, missionaries, planters, politicians, scientists, and students, among others—consolidated wage labor as the dominant production system in their countries. These reformers were not romantic humanitarians, but cosmopolitan modernizers who worked together to promote labor-saving machinery, new transportation technology, scientific management, and technical education. They successfully used such innovations to improve production and increase trade. Challenging commonly held ideas about slavery and its demise in the Western Hemisphere, American Mirror illustrates the crucial role of slave emancipation in the making of capitalism.

Socio-Environmental Research in Latin America

Author : Santiago López
Publisher : Springer Nature
ISBN 13 : 3031226801
Total Pages : 307 pages
Book Rating : 4.0/5 (312 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Socio-Environmental Research in Latin America by : Santiago López

Download or read book Socio-Environmental Research in Latin America written by Santiago López and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2023-03-29 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This contributed volume presents relevant examples of socio-environmental research that highlight the challenges and opportunities of using geotechnologies in interdisciplinary settings across the vast, culturally, and environmentally mega-diverse region known as Latin America. While remote sensing has been mostly used for mapping and monitoring physical features, geographic information systems open up opportunities for the integration of socio-economic and environmental data collected through individual and community-based surveys, in-situ measurements, and other participatory research techniques to offer additional analytically grounded power when evaluating socio-environmental processes that shape Latin American landscapes. The topics addressed in this book include deforestation and land degradation, borderlands dynamics, agriculture and agroecological systems, environmental conservation and development, public health, tourism, environmental justice, archeology, volunteered geography and urban planning, among others. The book is intended for academics, graduate and undergraduate classrooms, and general audiences with interest in Latin America and the socio-environmental issues that threaten the sustainability of the region and local communities. The book will also appeal to practitioners, managers, and policy makers interested in the application of geo-technologies and field-based research to address complex socio-environmental problems in the Global South.

New Directions in Agrarian Political Economy

Author : Ryan Isakson
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317424824
Total Pages : 279 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (174 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis New Directions in Agrarian Political Economy by : Ryan Isakson

Download or read book New Directions in Agrarian Political Economy written by Ryan Isakson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How relevant are the classic theories of agrarian change in the contemporary context? This volume explores this question by focusing upon the defining features of agrarian transformation in the 21st century: the financialization of food and agriculture, the blurring of rural and urban livelihoods through migration and other economic activities, forest transition, climate change, rural indebtedness, the co-evolution of social policy and moral economies, and changing property relations. Combined, the eleven contributions to this collection provide a broad overview of agrarian studies over the past four decades and identify the contemporary frontiers of agrarian political economy. In this path-breaking collection, the authors show how new iterations of long evident processes continue to catch peasants and smallholders in the crosshairs of crises and how many manage to face these challenges, developing new sources and sites of livelihood production. This volume was published as part one of the special double issue celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Journal of Peasant Studies.

Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative

Author : Aarti Smith Madan
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 331955140X
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (195 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative by : Aarti Smith Madan

Download or read book Lines of Geography in Latin American Narrative written by Aarti Smith Madan and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-08-17 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book looks to the writings of prolific statesmen like D.F. Sarmiento, Estanislao Zeballos, and Euclides da Cunha to unearth the literary and political roots of the discipline of geography in nineteenth-century Latin America. Tracing the simultaneous rise of text-writing, map-making, and institution-building, it offers new insight into how nations consolidated their territories. Beginning with the titanic figures of Strabo and Humboldt, it rereads foundational works like Facundo and Os sertões as examples of a recognizably geographical discourse. The book digs into lesser-studied bulletins, correspondence, and essays to tell the story of how three statesmen became literary stars while spearheading Latin America’s first geographic institutes, which sought to delineate the newly independent states. Through a fresh pairing of literary analysis and institutional history, it reveals that words and maps—literature and geography—marched in lockstep to shape national territories, identities, and narratives.

The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World

Author : Danna Levin Rojo
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 019934177X
Total Pages : 923 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (993 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World by : Danna Levin Rojo

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World written by Danna Levin Rojo and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 923 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This Handbook integrates innovative, interdisciplinary approaches to the production of Iberian imperial borderlands in the Americas, from southwestern U.S. to Patagonia, and their connections to trade and migratory circuits extending to Asia and Africa. In this volume borderlands comprise political boundaries, spaces of ethnic and cultural exchange, and ecological transitions.

The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World

Author : Danna A. Levin Rojo
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197507719
Total Pages : 923 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (975 download)

DOWNLOAD NOW!

Book Synopsis The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World by : Danna A. Levin Rojo

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Borderlands of the Iberian World written by Danna A. Levin Rojo and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-11-06 with total page 923 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This collaborative multi-authored volume integrates interdisciplinary approaches to ethnic, imperial, and national borderlands in the Iberian World (16th to early 19th centuries). It illustrates the historical processes that produced borderlands in the Americas and connected them to global circuits of exchange and migration in the early modern world. The book offers a balanced state-of-the-art educational tool representing innovative research for teaching and scholarship. Its geographical scope encompasses imperial borderlands in what today is northern Mexico and southern United States; the greater Caribbean basin, including cross-imperial borderlands among the island archipelagos and Central America; the greater Paraguayan river basin, including the Gran Chaco, lowland Brazil, Paraguay, and Bolivia; the Amazonian borderlands; the grasslands and steppes of southern Argentina and Chile; and Iberian trade and religious networks connecting the Americas to Africa and Asia. The volume is structured around the following broad themes: environmental change and humanly crafted landscapes; the role of indigenous allies in the Spanish and Portuguese military expeditions; negotiations of power across imperial lines and indigenous chiefdoms; the parallel development of subsistence and commercial economies across terrestrial and maritime trade routes; labor and the corridors of forced and free migration that led to changing social and ethnic identities; histories of science and cartography; Christian missions, music, and visual arts; gender and sexuality, emphasizing distinct roles and experiences documented for men and women in the borderlands. While centered in the colonial era, it is framed by pre-contact Mesoamerican borderlands and nineteenth-century national developments for those regions where the continuity of inter-ethnic relations and economic networks between the colonial and national periods is particularly salient, like the central Andes, lowland Bolivia, central Brazil, and the Mapuche/Pehuenche captaincies in South America. All the contributors are highly recognized scholars, representing different disciplines and academic traditions in North America, Latin America and Europe.