South America Books

I found a lot of good information on places to go within Rio. I recommend using a combination of this book and taxis to do your sightseeing instead of hopping a tour bus.

They've written so many of these guides that they are becoming a tad generic on their advice. I bought this and found a lot of information outdated to inaccurate when I arrived. However, if you're not planning on going to Rio right away, and find yourself very curious about this great city, I would definitely recommend it. It is very interesting, and completely different to western culture. If you're young and into the singles scene, or on business like I was and want more of a sure thing with brazilian women, I would recommend adding with this title The Hedonist: World Sex Guide - Single Male Erotic Vacations in Rio, Costa Rica, Thailand, Carribean and much more

Side note. There are very specific visas, with very specific requirements that you have to have to go there.

This is the best guide for things to keep you busy if you're in Washington!

The right mix of interesting information, maps, history and tips. Highly recommended.

Look No Further is a captivating debut novel, set in the years after the Korean War. A young woman falls in love with an muckraker grad student who is also a war veteran, and dares to take a job teaching English as a second language in Colombia. She discovers a nation in the middle of a struggle for democracy, and must adapt to the difficulties of marriage and daily life in a strange new culture. A sometimes gritty, always powerfully charged novel of love, cross-cultural relations, political fallout, and the drive of the human spirit set against the often harsh limits of reality, Look No Further compells the reader's attention to the very end.

Suzanne Hart reaches adulthood in 1958 while a student in the Midwest. Intrigued by the Beat movement and beguiled by her love for the man in a black turtleneck sweater, she succumbs to the lure of South America for adventure and to use her training to teach English-as-Second-Language. It was very interesting to see what university life was like for a young women in the late '50's, and then newly married life in Colombia. And the final chapter will keep you on the edge of your seat!

THIS IS A WONDERFUL BOOK, MY FAVORITE OF JULES VERN'S. EVEN THOUGH IT ISN'T VERY WELL-KNOWN, I WAS LUCKY ENOUGH TO READ IT WHEN I WAS ABOUT TWELVE. IT HAS BEEN MY FAVORITE EVER SINCE. EVEYBODY WHO LOVES ADVANTURE WILL LIKE THIS BOOK! ENJOY!

I read a Polish translation of this book when I was 9 years old, re-reading and re-re-reading it many times. Many years later, having migrated with my parents to Australia, thanks to that book I was very familliar with Australia's early history, seeing me well into high school. As well as that I became very familliar with new Zealands history of white settlement, as well as some history and geography of South America. This book is Verne at his best.

En este libro se nos narra la guerra más traumática que México ha tenido, por lo cual algunos de los pasajes que el autor maneja nos harán enojar (especialmente por la incapacidad de hacer algo y por saber el desenlace que tendrá). Sin embargo, el autor nos presenta un lado totalmente nuevo respecto a esta guerra: la participación de los soldados irlandeses del lado mexicano. Nos enseña que es por esta guerra por la cual los Estados Unidos es lo que es ahora, y como los irlandeses (que en ese tiempo eran los mexicanos del siglo XIX) vieron la injusticia cometida contra alguien más débil y similar a ellos que los mismos anglosajones.
Hogan hace una investigación seria que por primera vez incluye el lado mexicano, haciendolo constatar en las citas y documentos consultados. Es muy difícil que un autor supere este libro, por no decir imposible.
Si gustan saber respecto a la historia del Batallón de San Patricio olviden los demás libros y consigan este. La traducción es excelente, debido a que el traductor está inmerso en el ambito militar, por lo cual los términos usados son precisos y no pierden el sentido original del texto.
¡Excelente libro, excelente autor, excelente traducción!

(Spanish review -- English version appears below) Por fin, este excelente tomo sobre la historia dramática e importante del Batallón de San Patricio, que luchó al lado mexicano durante la intervención yanqui 1846-48, está traducido a español. Y no solo traducido, pero traducido por un general de brigada mexicano, y un historiador sobresaliente, Clever Chávez Marin. Entonces, toda la investigación rigurosa de Hogan, y toda la poesía de la historia, está disponible al lector hispanoparlante.

De herencia irlandesa (uno de sus antepasados aparece en la placa que conmemora el batallón en San Ángel, DF), Hogan también consultó en la pelicula "Heroes o Traidores", proyecto cinematográfico mexicano-americano que explora la aventura y tragedia de los San Patricios.

El libro es una respuesta fuerte a los muchos estudios extranjeros que han defendido el "destino manifiesto" de la época, y, con su estilo muy vivaz, ha alcanzado un nivel impresionante de popularidad, en México y afuera.

Hogan nos presenta una vista de de triunfos personales y históricos durante un conflicto que aun lideres norteamericanos como Grant y Lincoln consideraba vergonzoso, nos da nuevos datos y recursos derivados de su investigaciones através de muchos años, y nos permite, ya con la colaboración de Chávez Marin, celebrar los triunfos de este episodio y sus personajes memorables.

(English version of review) Finally, this excellent volume on the dramatic and important story of the San Patricio Batallion, which fought on the Mexican side during the 1846-48 Mexican War, has been translated, by a Mexican brigadier general, Clever Chávez Marin; an outstanding historian in his own right. Thus, all the rigorous research, and all the story's poetry captured by Hogan is now available to readers of Spanish.

Of Irish descent (one of his forebears appears on the plaque in a Mexico City plaza which commemorates the batallion's valor), Hogan was also consultant on the film "One Man's Hero" -- a U.S./Mexican project which explores the San Patricios' adventures and ultimate tragedies.

The book is a compelling response to many studies which continue to defend the U.S."manifest destiny" of this era, and, with its lively style, has achieved equally impressive popularity in Mexico, the U.S. and Ireland.

Hogan gives us a view of personal and historic triumphs during a conflict which even such leaders as Grant and Lincoln considered as "shameful", he gives us new facts and resources borne of his years of research, and now, with the collaboration of Chávez Marin, he permits us to celebrate the triumphs of the memorable characters who figured in this historic episode.

Lost Treasures Of The Inca is a nonfiction picturebook written by Peter Lourie for more advanced young readers. Featuring simple yet highly informative language, and enhanced with a wealth of full-color photographs of ancient artifacts and modern-day people, it contains a brief history of the Inca empire and of modern-day archaeological expeditions, young readers will learn a great deal about this amazing past civilization. A highly educational and enthusiastically recommended book, Lost Treasure Of The Inca is certain to teach something new to readers of any age.

I loved this book. It's wonderfully written and right away I was pulled into the adventure of searching for ancient Inca gold. People of every age will not only learn from this book but they'll enjoy every minute of it. It is an artful blend of history and all out adventure. My son loved this book as well; in fact it was something we could appreciate together and from this book we shared hours of conversation. We are recommending Lost Treasure of the Inca to everyone we know. My son particularly appreciated the addition of the treasure map and now he is plotting his own search for lost Inca treasure! This is the kind of book that inspires readers to think about doing something adventurous in their own lives -- it is one of those stories that stays with you after you've put the book down. Peter Lourie is a terrific writer with a gift for making the spirit of adventure come alive on the page.

There are 127 pages with pictures on every page. Some of the pictures pre 1900 and the majority are of good quality. This book is a must for anyone wanting to research the history of Valdosta and Lowndes county Georgia.

Dr. Tomberlin is actually a neigbor of ours and has been for about 30 years. Our children sang Christmas Carols on his front lawn and "Tricked or Treated" there when they were growing up. This is a purchase that I made for them. I was raised in Brooks county, a few miles from here. But we raised our children here in Valdosta, Lowndes County, Georgia. The photos and comments will mean so much to them as they grow older. Thanks to Dr. Tomberlin they can look back in history and see what helped to mold them. Thank you, Joe, for a job well done.
Susan Klanicki

This book is full of illustrations, paintings, political cartoons, photographs beautifully reproduced in a generous scale. Easily readable, with cultural references from slavery and native american relocation, romantic poetry and painting, "quack sciences" (phrenology), "women's problems". Highly recommended.

MADNESS IN AMERICA: Cultural and Medical Perceptions of Mental Illness before 1914 is a delectably readable, in depth investigation of mental illness during a time when few kind words for the clinically insane were in vogue. Psychiatry hadn't really evolved into a respectable zone of medicine until Freud and people with now well-defined disorders of the mind were grouped into madhouses and insane asylums populated by tertiary syphilitics, victims of brain tumors, and mentally retarded unfortunates. This 'untouchable' status left the population free to derive all manner of perverse etiologies from demonolgy to withcraft to religious punishment and that opened the door for not only charlatans but also for artists of every field to interpret whatever they wished. As the keenly gifted authors Lynn Gamwell and Nancy Tomes have researched and described in this lavishly illustrated tome, madness was a much maligned yet rich source of inspiration for scientists and artists alike. Extensive illustrations of the ghastly tools of the asylum doctors' trade are interwoven with beautiful and accurate renderings of the human nervous syatem and etchings, drawings and paintings by well known artists whose works were never thought to reflect madness until this volume. This book could (and most assuredly does) easily stand on its own; the fact that it accompanied an exhibition showing the drawings, instruments, and art inspired by madness during a learned physical documentary in 1995 only adds to the richness of this venture. Kudos to the authors, the publisher, and the curators for a true gift to the realm of scientifically artistic investigation.

Taussig starts with an impressionistic analysis of a Latin American spirit possesion cult and then uses it as a model to explain how the modern state relies on various mysterious incarnations as the basis of its legal system, economics, official history, even its highways. Mixes ethnography, political theory and cultural criticism in an often unsettling but ultimately convincing performance. You WILL believe in ghosts!

Taussig, as his career has progressed, has embraced more and more Nietzsche's dictum that cultural representation must - absolutely must - be inherently radical. The Magic of the State perhaps exemplifies this best - being of a different conceptual order than just about anything out there in large-press anthropology. However unorthodox Shamanism, Colonialism, and the Wild Man or Defacement may have been with their incorporation of the more literary voices in ethnography and cultural studies, The Magic of the State slips between orthodox and heterodox altogether - as it simply abandons anything resembling an enthographic model, and instead takes the form of a fictional narrative that might be called anthropological literature or, more accurately, surrealist anthropology...

If you can suspend your standard expectations of what state-theory should be all about, you will find Taussig's book extremely rewarding and even humorous in spots. If you remove the historical, traditional, and methodical bases of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities, and inject a generous helping of hallucinatory imagery, dada-esque playfulness, and representational experimentation (and maybe some steriods), you MIGHT come within several kilometers of describing Taussig's masterful book. But in this case, to describe would be to "write around," and this is certainly a work that should be "written with" and celebrated for the vistas from which it enables us mere mortals to see.

Agosin and Levison weave inspirational stories about intrepid women travelers - very well-written, insightful, and lovely.

Prof. Agosin is a well known writer on Latin America. This book poetically describes the transformative experience of travelling through the eyes of a varied group of women.