In Review
Coca and Cocaine: Effects on People and Policy in Latin America edited by Deborah Pacini and Christine Franquemont. Cultural Survival Report No. 23, 1986, 169 pp., $8 (paper); 11 Divinity...
...A good antidote to Miami Vice...
...In this engrossing account of a substance and its unusual relationship to society, the reknowned anthropologist and food historian Sidney W. Mintz tells us the history of Europe, of its tropical colonies, and of the complex and intimate way sugar changed each...
...This collection of papers, originally presented at a 1985 Cornell University conference, focuses on how Andean peoples have been effected by coca's transformation from sacred leaf to the internationally coveted commodity of cocaine...
...Though not yet reaching the levels of the' early 1980s, human rights groups report that there were "as many death squad-style disappearances and murders in the first three months of 1988 alone as in all of 1987...
...Viking, 1988, 499 pp., $21.95 (cloth...
...University of Wisconsin Press, 1987, 446 pp., $15 (paper...
...Includes discussions of historical and media images of the region's women, family and education structures, and culture...
...This book takes the mass media as its context and brings the familiar theme of media bias to life with telling detail...
...and Mexico...
...Zed Books, 1986, 165 pp., $9.95 (paper...
...In particular, the book questions traditional depictions of peasants as political actors who are merely "parochial and defensive reactors" to external forces such as the world market and the imposition of capitalist plantations...
...AI's latest briefing on El Salvador in the wake of the renewed surge of death squad killings in 1988 after a period of relative decline...
...The book outlines various programs and community projects organized for and by women that aim to integrate women into rural development and thereby empower them with a voice in economic policy...
...A provocative collection of essays on peasant movements in the Andes which covers insurrections in the late colonial period, nation-state formation of the 19th century and the Bolivian peasant movement in the 20th century...
...El Salvador: 'Death Squads' - A Government Strategy by Amnesty International, 1988, 50 pp., $5...
...Stresses women's hidden and special contributions to society as laborers, hucksters and entrepreneurs, and providers of basic needs in poor communities...
...Women of the Caribbean edited by Pat Ellis...
...A rare collection of essays covering the varied lives of women in the Caribbean...
...Numerous interviews with Salvadorans, including former death squad members, marshall plenty of evidence to justify the report's accusatory title...
...One example: 34 brillant pages compare media coverage of the murder of Polish priest Jerzy Popieluszko with that of 100 religious figures in Latin America, including Archbishop Romero and the four U.S...
...Common assumptions and paradigms in peasant studies are challenged and Stem's introductory chapter makes new methodological suggestions for future studies...
...Pantheon, 1988, 412pp., $14.95 (paper...
...Long on anecdotes and short on analysis, the book focuses almost exclusively on the case of murdered DEA agent Enrique Camarena...
...His study covers the preiod previous to the late 1940s, when complex aspects associated with drugs today-geographical expansion of the traffic, control by organized gangs and increased recreational use-began to appear...
...Curbstone Press, 1988, 124 pp., $19.95 (paper...
...As the title suggests, this book is aimed at the best-seller lists...
...Resistance, Rebellion and Consciousness in the Andean Peasant World 18th to 20th Centuries edited by Steve J. Stem...
...Lawmen, and the War America Can't Win by Elaine Shannon...
...11 Divinity Ave., Cambridge, MA 02138...
...Penguin, 1986, 273 pp., $7.95 (paper...
...Desperados: Latin Drug Lords, U.S...
...Walker sees historically divergent attitudes toward drugs between the two regions and focuses primarily on drug diplomacy between the U.S...
...Manufacturing Consent by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky...
...Chapters include coca chewing and the botanical origins of coca, Andean cultural identity and coca, preColumbian cultivation, the international narcotics control system, foreign plans to eradicate coca, the impact of drug traffic on Colombia, effects on Bolivian rural society and political and economic implications for tribal Amazonian Indians who have recently begun to grow coca as a cash crop...
...There are unifying threads in the vast body of Herman and Chomsky's works, in which themes and examples reappear in a variety of contexts...
...Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History by Sidney W. Mintz...
...Not very instructive, but it does make for a good read...
...A pleasure to read...
...Shannon researched her topic exhaustively, amassing tremendous detail to answer questions which are largely irrelevant to understanding this pressing issue...
...and Latin America as rooted in a larger historical context...
...The bottom line: One Polish priest's murder made the front page of the New York Times 10 times, 2 more than the 100 murdered Latins, 6 more than Archbishop Romero...
...An attempt to analyze drug control (a "proscriptive and prescriptive reform movement") and drug usage in the U.S...
...Drug Control in the Americas by William O. Walker III...
...University of New Mexico Press, 1981, 287 pp., $15.95 (paper...
...church women in El Salvador...
...A powerful juxtaposition of words and pictures, begun as an exhibit called "Women and Repression in Guatemala...
...An invaluable work from two writers who have once again met their own high standards...
...Details the legal and social history of international attempts to control the drug trade...
...Granddaughters of Corn: Portraits of Guatemalan Women by Marilyn Anderson and Jonathan Garlock...
...By combining Anderson's striking photos of Indian women doing traditional weaving with their graphic accounts of the military's atrocities, the book offers us Guatemala's essence: beauty and cruelty coexisting side by side...
...The first sweetened cup of hot tea to be drunk by an English worker," writes the author, "was a significant historical event...
Vol. 22 • March 1989 • No. 6
