By Geoff Baker One of the most interesting books I’ve read in a while is Manuel Silva-Ferrer’s just-published El cuerpo dócil de la cultura: Poder, cultura y comunicación en la Venezuela de Chávez. It’s a must-read for anyone interested in recent Venezuelan culture and its relationship to politics and economics. Direct references to Abreu and El Sistema are scarce, but the overall arguments are highly relevant, and I’m going to put them into dialogue here with my own research …

Abreu, Chávez and Oil. A review of Silva-Ferrer’s El cuerpo dócil de la cultura: poder, cultura y comunicación en la Venezuela de Chávez. Read more »

African Heritage and Memories of Slavery in Brazil and the South Atlantic World. Edited by Ana Lucia Araujo. Amherst, MA: Cambria Press, 2015. Figures. Notes. Bibliography. Index. xi, 406 pp. Cloth, $124.99. http://www.cambriapress.com/cambriapress.cfm?template=4&bid=618   Border Law: The First Seminole War and American Nationhood. By Deborah A. Rosen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Maps. Appendix. Notes. Index. 316 pp. Cloth, $45.00. http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674967618   Colombia’s Narcotics Nightmare: How the Drug Trade Destroyed Peace. By James D. Henderson. Jefferson, NC: McFarland …

Books Received 2015 Read more »