Coleman, Kevin. A Camera in the Garden of Eden. The Self-Forging of a Banana Republic, University of Texas Press, Texas, 2016.   As I read this book, I was surprised by Kevin Coleman’s command over multiple lines of inquiry. The book develops a new way of thinking about issues that the historiography of Latin America has long been concerned with, and that Coleman is consolidating in several initiatives (http://kevincoleman.org/). The questions that I posed to him revolve around his …

A Camera in The Garden of Eden. Questions to Kevin Coleman Read more »

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 »