Travel World guide

In 1854, Isaac Strain, an ambitious young U.S. Navy lieutenant, launched an expedition hoping to find a definitive route for a canal across the isthmus of Panama. For hundreds of years, the Darin isthmus had defied explorers; its unmapped wilderness contained some of the world’s most torturous jungle. Yet Strain was confident he could complete the crossing. He was wrong. He and his men quickly lost their way and stumbled into ruin. Balf (The Last River) vibrantly recounts their journey, a disaster on a par with the Donner party or the sinking of the whale ship Essex. Using logs kept by Strain and his lieutenants, as well as other period sources, Balf follows the party from their first missteps (their landing boat capsized in roiling surf) to their near-miraculous rescue two months later. Strain and his crew endured exhaustion, heat, starvation and infestations of botfly maggots, which grew under the skin and fattened on human tissue. The men were forced to make heartbreaking life-and-death decisions; e.g., voting to leave behind sick companions who couldn’t keep up with the rest (one shrieked after them as they trudged deeper into the jungle). Some men surrendered to despair; two of them quietly conspired to commit cannibalism. Balf has written a compelling, tragic story, reviving an adventure overshadowed, 60 years later, by the successful completion of the canal. Balf reminds readers that, like the transcontinental railroad farther to the north, the channel was “built on the bones of dead men.” Illus., maps not seen by PW.
Copyright Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

The 1854 U.S. Darien Exploring Expedition, led by navy lieutenant Isaac Strain, was seeking a ship-canal route that would link the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The men suffered from disease, exhaustion, deadly insects, starvation, despair, and failure. Despite a two-year search by Balf, author of The Last River, he was never able to find the journals and notebooks kept by the group’s 29 members. The journal entries appeared in only one place, an account written by the then best-selling historian Joel Tyler Headley. His story appeared over three successive editions of the 1855 Harper’s New Monthly, the most thought-provoking periodical of the day. The men had overcome unimaginable obstacles when they emerged from the rain forest after five months; six members of the expedition had died. Balf’s colorful account of the venture is compelling reading. George Cohen
Copyright American Library Association. All rights reserved

Commit yourself to the Virgin Mary, for in her hands is the way into the Darinand in Gods is the way out.

The Darkest Jungle tells the harrowing story of Americas first ship canal exploration across a narrow piece of land in Central America called the Darin, a place that loomed large in the minds of the worlds most courageous adventurers in the nineteenth century. With rival warships and explorers from England and France days behind, the 27-member U.S. Darin Exploring Expedition landed on the Atlantic shore at Caledonia Bay in eastern Panama to begin their mad dash up the coast-hugging mountains of the Darin wilderness. The whole world watched as this party attempted to be the first to traverse the 40-mile isthmus, the narrowest spot between the Atlantic and Pacific in all the Americas.

Later, government investigators would say they were doomed before they started. Amid the speculative fever for an Atlantic and Pacific ship canal, the terrain to be crossed had been grossly misrepresented and fictitiously mapped. By January 27, 1854, the Americans had served out their last provisions and were severely footsore but believed the river they had arrived at was an artery to the Pacific, their destination. Leading them was the charismatic commander Isaac Strain, an adventuring 33-year-old U.S. Navy lieutenant. The party could have turned back except, said Strain, they were to a man revolted at the idea of failing at a task they seemed destined to accomplish. Like the first men to try to scale Everest or reach the North Pole, they felt the eyes of their countrymen upon them.

Yet Strains party would wander lost in the jungle for another sixty nightmarish days, following a tortuously contorted and uncharted tropical river. Their guns rusted in the damp heat, expected settlements never materialized, and the lush terrain provided little to no sustenance. As the unending march dragged on, the party was beset by flesh-embedding parasites and a range of infectious tropical diseases they had no antidote for (or understanding of). In the desperate final days, in the throes of starvation, the survivors flirted with cannibalism and the sickest men had to be left behind so, as the journal keeper painfully recorded, the rest might have a chance to live.

The U.S. Darin Exploring Expeditions 97-day ordeal of starvation, exhaustion, and madnessa tragedy turned triumph of the soul due to the courage and self-sacrifice of their leader and the seamen who devotedly followed himis one of the great untold tales of human survival and exploration. Based on the vividly detailed log entries of Strain and his junior officers, other period sources, and Balfs own treks in the Darin Gap, this is a rich and utterly compelling historical narrative that will thrill readers who enjoyed In the Heart of the Sea, Isaacs Storm, and other sagas of adventure at the limits of human endurance.

The Darkest Jungle: The True Story of the Darien Expedition and America’s Ill-Fated Race to Connect the Seas

The Darien Gap: Travels in the Rainforest of Panama

Martin Mitchinson has been a travel writer and photographer for the past ten years. He was born in Saskatoon and raised in northern Alberta, where he later worked in the oil fields to support his travels to Central and South America. He now lives outside Powell River, BC. The Darien Gap is his first book.

Finalist for the 2009 Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction

If you want to drive from North America to South America, you’ll have a hard time when you reach Panama’s southernmost province, Darien. The Pan-American Highway ends just sixty miles short of Colombia. It’s the only missing link in what would otherwise be uninterrupted highway from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

When Balboa marched through Darien’s jungles to cross the narrow isthmus in 1513, he was the first European to sight the Pacific from its eastern shores. For the next four centuries, pirates, gold miners, rebels, and political schemers all gravitated to Darien. Scotland failed miserably in its attempt to establish a colony. An American Navy expedition wandered lost in its jungle for two months with seven men dying, and countries fought to control the region’s traffic and trade. Yet today, Darien is best known as a roadless backwater, home to native communities, Colombian guerrillas, and the descendants of black slaves and Spanish colonists.

For twenty years, Martin Mitchinson has travelled in Central and South America. Fascinated by tales of Darien, he arrived aboard his 36-foot sailboat Ishmael, and spent the next 18 months navigating physical challenges, native politics and the constant risk of kidnapping. Mitchinson found temporary shelter in native communities while he followed footpaths through the rainforest, and paddled a dugout canoe along Darien’s rivers. With two Kuna guides, he set off to follow Balboa’s historic route across the continental divide to the Pacific.

Drawing on firsthand accounts and personal interviews to illuminate the history of the region, and recounting his travels with extraordinary honesty and grace, Mitchinson has produced the first of what we hope will be many fine travel narratives.

The Darien Gap: Travels in the Rainforest of Panama

Rio de Janeiro’s carnival, seen in the foreign film Black Orpheus , is the site of an annual samba competition. “Guillermoprieto vividly presents the individual stories of principal participants, analyzes the feelings they express in their music and dance, describes the contributions of the various samba schools and offers his interpretation of black Brazilian history and culture,” said PW.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Every year the favela (poor sections on the hills of the city) of Rio organize teams of Samba dancers to compete in the yearly carnival. The author follows the preparations from the perspective of the champion Manguiera team, 5000 strong, and finds a serious community project to which all contribute despite their poverty and the high cost of costumes. The Manguiera team honors its African roots in its themes. Tempers and emotions escalate, leading to inevitable disasters which last for months, until finally all collapse into a black and white mass of unfettered sensualism at carnival. This delightful book gives a glimpse into a culture of poverty and its art form, about which too little has been written in English. Photographs would have added to the fun of reading; nevertheless, this will be popular with general readers.
-Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Lib., Gainesville
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

For one year, Alma Guillermoprieto lived in Manguiera, a village near Rio de Janeiro, to learn the ritual of samba–the sensuous song and dance marked by a rapturous beat–and to take part in Rio’s renowned carnivale parade.

Samba

Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae, Revised Edition

Since the Caribbean’s multifaceted music is usually heard in the U.S. only in such popular forms as reggae and salsa, Manuel and company’s diligent scholarship is much needed. They provide thoughtful descriptions of such overlooked styles as the bachata of the Dominican Republic and the voudou-jazz of Haiti, as well as of the forms of more musically famous islands, such as Jamaica and Trinidad. They discuss such insular cultural manifestations as the salsa vs. merengue conflict in New York City and the Hindu devotional songs of Trinidad’s Indian community. They describe their travels in several rather inaccessible countries, particularly Cuba. They cogently argue how the Caribbean’s historical, political, and social developments shaped its musics. The musical analyses and notation they provide are straightforward enough to interest careful listeners as well as casual fans, and the many helpful discographies throughout the book–not to mention the cool photographs!–contribute to making this an essential text on some of the world’s most irrepressible rhythms. Aaron Cohen –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

“Caribbean Currents” presents an engaging panorama of the rich and diverse musics of the Caribbean region. This expanded and updated edition of the award-winning book covers recent developments in the region’s music, such as the emergence of reggaeton and timba and includes a new and extensive study of Jamaican dancehall. Among the other additions are twenty-seven illustrations. The authors cover the historical development and current forms of the musics of Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Jamaica, Trinidad, the French Caribbean, the lesser Antilles, and their transnational communities in the United States and elsewhere. They also succinctly and perceptively situate the musical music styles and developments in the context of themes of gender and racial dynamics, socio-political background, and diasporic dimensions. Written in a style that is at once readable, entertaining, and scholarly, “Caribbean Currents” is an ideal resource for students, musicians, and general readers.

Caribbean Currents: Caribbean Music from Rumba to Reggae, Revised Edition

Unlike John Krich’s survey of all Latin America in El Beisbol ( LJ 5/1/89), this looks only at the half-island nation which sent Hall of Famer Juan Marichal and other stars to the big leagues. Ruck ( Sandlot Seasons: Sport in Black Pittsburgh, LJ 1/15/87) traces baseball’s 100 years there against the story of foreign economic domination and Trujillo repression. Though expensive for some libraries, this is a valuable study and should be in all serious collections.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

“In the Dominican Republic . . . baseball reigns supreme. San Pedro de Macors, on the islands southeast coast, has produced more major league ballplayers per capita than any other town in the world. According to former big leaguer Pedro Gonzalez, Every boy grows up with a bat and a ballits the first present a male baby gets in his crib. . . . Ruck offers not only the flavor of Dominican baseball but a spirited and carefully crafted account of the past and present of this complicated game. . . . A rarity in sports history.”Journal of American History (Journal of American History )

“Fans should want to know why such a little Caribbean island has so much baseball talent. . . . On this literally dirt-poor island, baseball is the Dream, the Salvation, the stabilizing societal force. . . . Baseball is all there is.”Baseball America (Baseball America )

“Impressive . . . captures the spirit of the sport as it is played in the Dominican Republic.”Journal of Sport History (Journal of Sport History )

In a new afterword Rob Ruck looks at the current state of baseball in the country that has produced Sammy Sosa and many other major league stars.

“In the Dominican Republic . . . baseball reigns supreme. San Pedro de Macors, on the islands southeast coast, has produced more major league ballplayers per capita than any other town in the world. According to former big leaguer Pedro Gonzalez, Every boy grows up with a bat and a ballits the first present a male baby gets in his crib. . . . Ruck offers not only the flavor of Dominican baseball but a spirited and carefully crafted account of the past and present of this complicated game. . . . A rarity in sports history.”Journal of American History

“Fans should want to know why such a little Caribbean island has so much baseball talent. . . . On this literally dirt-poor island, baseball is the Dream, the Salvation, the stabilizing societal force. . . . Baseball is all there is.”Baseball America

“Impressive . . . captures the spirit of the sport as it is played in the Dominican Republic.”Journal of Sport History

The Tropic of Baseball: Baseball in the Dominican Republic

The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris

Kurlansky offers an intriguing look at the history of the Dominican Republic and the role American baseball has played in the impoverished and destitute sugar-growing town of San Pedro de Macoris. Kurlansky’s approach and style make this story accessible even to nonsports fans. Ed Sala’s deep and slightly throaty voice is enjoyable to listen to, though at times he can be a bit halting in his rhythm. Sentences end and begin with some abruptness, and there are mild inconsistencies with Spanish pronunciation. Despite this, Kurlansky’s prose and Salas’s overall performance combine to keep listeners tuned in till the end. A Riverhead hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 25).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

The intriguing, inspiring history of one small, impoverished area in the Dominican Republic that has produced a staggering number of Major League Baseball talent, from an award-winning, bestselling author.

In the town of San Pedro in the Dominican Republic, baseball is not just a way of life. It’s the way of life. By the year 2008, seventy-nine boys and men from San Pedro have gone on to play in the Major Leagues-that means one in six Dominican Republicans who have played in the Majors have come from one tiny, impoverished region. Manny Alexander, Sammy Sosa, Tony Fernandez, and legions of other San Pedro players who came up in the sugar mill teams flocked to the United States, looking for opportunity, wealth, and a better life.

Because of the sugar industry, and the influxes of migrant workers from across the Caribbean to work in the cane fields and factories, San Pedro is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the Dominican Republic. A multitude of languages are spoken there, and a variety of skin colors populate the community; but the one constant is sugar and baseball. The history of players from San Pedro is also a chronicle of racism in baseball, changing social mores in sports and in the Dominican Republic, and the personal stories of the many men who sought freedom from poverty through playing ball. The story of baseball in San Pedro is also that of the Caribbean in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and on a broader level opens a window into our country’s history.

As with Kurlansky’s Cod and Salt, this small story, rich with anecdote and detail, becomes much larger than ever imagined. Kurlansky reveals two countries’ love affair with a sport and the remarkable journey of San Pedro and its baseball players. In his distinctive style, he follows common threads and discovers wider meanings about place, identity, and, above all, baseball.

The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris

We are very proud to offer this book. We constantly receive customer responses praising the book.

Thor “Bushman Ollie” Janson first came to Belize in 1973, was captivated and returned several times throughout the years. The photographs in this book were taken over many years with the help of many Belizeans. He continues to travel through Central America.

Belize: Land of the Free by the Carib Sea is a book displaying Belizean culture through pictures. Includes detailed photographs of Belize City, district village life, the Cayes, native wildlife, and much more!

Belize : Land of the Free by the Carib Sea

Heavenly Belize

Marius Jovaisa — photographer, publisher, author of documentary films was born in Vilnius, Lithuania in 1973. Heavenly Belize is his second big album of aerial pictures after Unseen Lithuania was published in 2008 and became a bestselling book. Marius Jovaisa’s personal photographic exhibitions have been displayed in Australia, the USA, Canada, Argentina, Japan, Spain, Germany, Ireland, Italy, France and many other countries.

Most people who come to Belize will agree that it is a country of astounding and diverse beauty. But few visitors — and most Belizeans for that matter — are fortunate enough to view Belize through the eyes of a soaring hawk or frigate…or a brilliantly plumed scarlet macaw. That’s the extraordinary vantage point employed by author/photographer Marius Jovaisa in Heavenly Belize. Using an ultralight aircraft originally designed for National Geographic assignments in Africa, Jovaisa travels the length and breadth of the country, capturing images ranging from towering jungle covered mountains and ancient Mayan cities to the 400 foot deep Blue Hole at Lighthouse Reef. Whether you are a first time visitor to Belize, or born and raised here, these never before published photographs will give you a deep appreciation of this refreshingly unique nation.

Heavenly Belize

[A] tale of great adventure. . . a stirring and sensitive record, well written by a true explorer. –New York Times

[A] book of great power. . .should be read by everyone. –Daily Telegraph –This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Colonel Percy Harrison Fawcett was born in 1867 in Devon, England. At the age of nineteen he was given a commission in the Royal Artillery. He served in Ceylon for several years where he met and married his wife. Later he performed secret service work in North Africa. Fawcett found himself bored with Army life and learned the art of surveying, hoping to land a more interesting job. Then in 1906 came the offer from the Society: His ticket to adventure. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

The disappearance of Colonel Fawcett in the Matto Grosso remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of today. In 1925 Fawcett was convinced that he had discovered the location of a lost city; he had set out with two companions, one of whom was his eldest son, to destination ‘Z’, never to be heard of again. His younger son, Brian Fawcett, has compiled this book from letters and records left by his father whose last written words to his wife were: ‘You need have no fear of any failure…’ This thrilling and mysterious account of Fawcett’s ten years of travels in deadly jungles and forests in search of a secret city was compiled from manuscripts, letters and logbooks by his son.

[A] tale of great adventure. . . a stirring and sensitive record, well written by a true explorer. –New York Times

[A] book of great power. . .should be read by everyone. –Daily Telegraph –This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

Exploration Fawcett: Journey to the Lost City of Z

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone

It is rare when a historical narrative keeps readers up late into the night, especially when the story is as well known as Henry Morgan Stanley’s search for the missionary and explorer David Livingstone. But author and adventurer Dugard, who’s written a biography of Capt. James Cook among other works, makes a suspenseful tale out of journalist Stanley’s successful trek through the African interior to find and rescue a stranded Livingstone. Dugan has read extensively in unpublished diaries, newspapers of the time and the archives of Britain’s Royal Geographical Society; he also visited the African locations central to the story. Together these sources enable him to re-create with immediacy the astounding hardships, both natural and manmade, that Africa put in the path of the two central characters. Dugard also presents thoughtful insights into the psychology of both Stanley and Livingstone, whose respective responses to Africa could not have differed more. Stanley was bent on beating Africa with sheer force of will, matching it brutality for brutality, while Livingstone, possessed of spirituality and a preternatural absence of any fear of death, responded to the continent’s harshness with patience and humility. Descriptions of the African landscape are vivid, as are the descriptions of malaria, dysentery, sleeping sickness, insect infestations, monsoons and tribal wars, all of which Stanley and Livingstone faced. More disturbing, however is Dugard’s depiction of the prosperous Arab slave trade, which creates a sense of menace that often reaches Conradian intensity. This is a well-researched, always engrossing book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. –This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

With the utterance of a single lineDoctor Livingstone, I presume?a remote meeting in the heart of Africa was transformed into one of the most famous encounters in exploration history. But the true story behind Dr. David Livingstone and journalist Henry Morton Stanley is one that has escaped telling. Into Africa is an extraordinarily researched account of a thrilling adventuredefined by alarming foolishness, intense courage, and raw human achievement.

In the mid-1860s, exploration had reached a plateau. The seas and continents had been mapped, the globe circumnavigated. Yet one vexing puzzle remained unsolved: what was the source of the mighty Nile river? Aiming to settle the mystery once and for all, Great Britain called upon its legendary explorer, Dr. David Livingstone, who had spent years in Africa as a missionary. In March 1866, Livingstone steered a massive expedition into the heart of Africa. In his path lay nearly impenetrable, uncharted terrain, hostile cannibals, and deadly predators. Within weeks, the explorer had vanished without a trace. Years passed with no word.

While debate raged in England over whether Livingstone could be foundor rescuedfrom a place as daunting as Africa, James Gordon Bennett, Jr., the brash American newspaper tycoon, hatched a plan to capitalize on the worlds fascination with the missing legend. He would send a young journalist, Henry Morton Stanley, into Africa to search for Livingstone. A drifter with great ambition, but little success to show for it, Stanley undertook his assignment with gusto, filing reports that would one day captivate readers and dominate the front page of the New York Herald.

Tracing the amazing journeys of Livingstone and Stanley in alternating chapters, author Martin Dugard captures with breathtaking immediacy the perils and challenges these men faced. Woven into the narrative, Dugard tells an equally compelling story of the remarkable transformation that occurred over the course of nine years, as Stanley rose in power and prominence and Livingstone found himself alone and in mortal danger. The first book to draw on modern research and to explore the combination of adventure, politics, and larger-than-life personalities involved, Into Africa is a riveting read.

Into Africa: The Epic Adventures of Stanley and Livingstone

One hundred years ago two Cubans introduced baseball to the Dominican Republic, where it became the national pastime. But the game has evolved into something other than a carbon copy of the U.S. sport, and Klein, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Northeastern University, shows how the two differ. After a jargon-laden introduction, he presents an excellent short history of Dominica, the development of teams sponsored by the large sugar refineries (hence the book’s title), and an absorbing analysis of how the Dominican national persona affects players and fans today.

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

In the Dominican Republic baseball is not only a game but a national obsession. Exported from the United States and still controlled by it, the game is also an arena of intercultural relations. “Sugarball” describes how Dominican baseball fosters national pride and competition with the United States while at the same time promoting acceptance of the North American presence in the country. Alam M.Klein traces the introduction and development of baseball in the Dominican Republic, provides sketches of fans, stadiums, and players, and discusses such issues as the origin of the Dominican baseball academies and the international competition for Dominican players. Throughout, he evokes the enthusiam that Dominicans have for the game and shows how it mirrors the conflict they feel between allowing and resisting American hegemony in their country. Klein relates the efforts of major league teams to seek talent in the Dominican Republic and shape the game to suit their own purposes – efforts that resemble other exploitative enterprises in the Third World. These activities evoke little resentment, because for many Dominican young men baseball is the only way out of a life of unemployment or of hard labour in cities or cane fields. At the same time, their prowess at baseball encourages the Dominicans to oppose further interference from the Americans.

Sugarball: The American Game, the Dominican Dream

The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris

Kurlansky offers an intriguing look at the history of the Dominican Republic and the role American baseball has played in the impoverished and destitute sugar-growing town of San Pedro de Macoris. Kurlansky’s approach and style make this story accessible even to nonsports fans. Ed Sala’s deep and slightly throaty voice is enjoyable to listen to, though at times he can be a bit halting in his rhythm. Sentences end and begin with some abruptness, and there are mild inconsistencies with Spanish pronunciation. Despite this, Kurlansky’s prose and Salas’s overall performance combine to keep listeners tuned in till the end. A Riverhead hardcover (Reviews, Jan. 25).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. –This text refers to the Audio CD edition.

The intriguing, inspiring history of one small, impoverished area in the Dominican Republic that has produced a staggering number of Major League Baseball talent, from an award-winning, bestselling author.

In the town of San Pedro in the Dominican Republic, baseball is not just a way of life. It’s the way of life. By the year 2008, seventy-nine boys and men from San Pedro have gone on to play in the Major Leagues-that means one in six Dominican Republicans who have played in the Majors have come from one tiny, impoverished region. Manny Alexander, Sammy Sosa, Tony Fernandez, and legions of other San Pedro players who came up in the sugar mill teams flocked to the United States, looking for opportunity, wealth, and a better life.

Because of the sugar industry, and the influxes of migrant workers from across the Caribbean to work in the cane fields and factories, San Pedro is one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the Dominican Republic. A multitude of languages are spoken there, and a variety of skin colors populate the community; but the one constant is sugar and baseball. The history of players from San Pedro is also a chronicle of racism in baseball, changing social mores in sports and in the Dominican Republic, and the personal stories of the many men who sought freedom from poverty through playing ball. The story of baseball in San Pedro is also that of the Caribbean in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries and on a broader level opens a window into our country’s history.

As with Kurlansky’s Cod and Salt, this small story, rich with anecdote and detail, becomes much larger than ever imagined. Kurlansky reveals two countries’ love affair with a sport and the remarkable journey of San Pedro and its baseball players. In his distinctive style, he follows common threads and discovers wider meanings about place, identity, and, above all, baseball.

The Eastern Stars: How Baseball Changed the Dominican Town of San Pedro de Macoris

Most books on Guatemala concentrate on either the country’s nightmarish political situation or its mysterious Maya past, making it difficult for readers to get any clear idea of contemporary daily life. Fulbright scholar Benz spent two years doing such ordinary, day-by-day things as shopping for food, buying a motor scooter and standing in the same administrative lines as ordinary Guatemalans. With his family in tow, he traveled to some of the most remote and unstable parts of the country, watched, listened, and came back with stories a more hard-driven reporter would probably never have taken the time to hear. Benz doesn’t flinch from the fact that this is a country where, during massacres of peasants, the opening of a shopping mall hogs the news coverage. He grapples with the hot issues of the influx of foreign missionaries, mass killings and a strangling bureaucracy with the refreshing attitude that he is not an expert but an observer. Unfortunately, the book comes to a rather abrupt end, leaving readers searching for a missing chapter and eager for this astute observer’s conclusions about his journey.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Benz brings the reader face to face with the landscape, the people, and the institutions of Guatemala. I am convinced that his book will appeal to a general audience, to students entering the field of Latin American studies, and even to people planning a trip to that country. His insights into and observations of Guatemalan society are invariably accurate and engaging. (Pablo Medina, author of Exiled Memories: A Cuban Childhood )

Guatemala draws some half million tourists each year, whose brief visits to the ruins of ancient Maya cities and contemporary highland Maya villages may give them only a partial and folkloric understanding of Guatemalan society. In this vividly written travel narrative, Stephen Connely Benz explores the Guatemala that casual travelers miss, using his encounters with ordinary Guatemalans at the mall, on the streets, at soccer games, and even at the funeral of massacre victims to illuminate the social reality of Guatemala today. The book opens with an extended section on the capital, Guatemala City, and then moves out to the more remote parts of the country where the Guatemalan Indians predominate. Benz offers us a series of intelligent and sometimes humorous perspectives on Guatemala’s political history and the role of the military, the country’s environmental degradation, the influence of foreign missionaries, and especially the impact of the United States on Guatemala, from governmental programs to fast food franchises.

Benz brings the reader face to face with the landscape, the people, and the institutions of Guatemala. I am convinced that his book will appeal to a general audience, to students entering the field of Latin American studies, and even to people planning a trip to that country. His insights into and observations of Guatemalan society are invariably accurate and engaging.

Guatemalan Journey

The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala

Winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction award, this remarkable debut collection chronicles life in the impoverished Guatemalan towns of Santa Cruz and nearby Coban. The physical distance these 10 stories cover is short, but the geography of human spirit it traverses is vast. In “Gemelas,” a young woman reacts with a mixture of happiness and jealousy at the prospect of her twin sister’s marriage to a wealthy landowner; it is her fate to follow her sister down a tragic path. A father, his daughter and a young woman grapple with fear of abandonment and aloneness in “How They Healed.” A young boy experiences the erotic thrill of mystery when he is seduced by his employer, whose face he never sees, in “Bathwater.” Pervading each tale is ex-Peace Corps volunteer Brazaitis’s understanding of the intricate social stratifications of his characters’ rural community. Adopting the conventions of folktales in sophisticated ways, Brazaitis controls his narratives with sparse dialogue and omniscient or calmly retrospective narrators. His admirable restraint anchors the stories and connects them by a tight chain of motifs, while his lucid prose directs attention away from itself and toward the characters who provide their color and drama.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Winner of the 1998 Iowa Short Fiction Award, a national competition juried by the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. The River of Lost Voices captures both the magic and sorrow of life in Santa Cruz Verapaz, a small town in the northern mountains of Guatemala. In each of his stories, Mark Brazaitis gives voice to Guatemala’s indigenous population–people who speak Pokomchi and Cakchiquel, languages and cultures often buried in the crush of assimilation. Through their voices, the author uncovers tales of lives redeemed and lost in the tumult of history.

The River of Lost Voices: Stories from Guatemala (Iowa Short Fiction Award)

Courage Tastes of Blood explores how ordinary, marginalized indigenous peoples in Chile construct historical memory in small, discontinuous steps, a process which enables them to sustain a politics of difference in a world where globalization threatens to further homogenize diversity in the name of economic progress and stability. Following this logic in her own practice, Florencia E. Mallon highlights the importance of everyday practices in understanding oral sources, and, in so doing, she challenges readers to reconsider the preconceptions of history as a field of knowledge that reproduces the rationality of power. This is a bold, fascinating, and highly original contribution to our understanding of indigenous lives, repression in Chile, and racism, and it provides a methodological lesson in rethinking fields of inquiry from the perspective of alternative knowledge producers.Arturo Arias, past president of the Latin American Studies Association

Florencia E. Mallon combines a historians sensitivity to context and an ethnographers attention to cultural description, capturing the everydayness of life in the midst of rapid social transformation. While focusing on one Mapuche community, she provides insights into larger histories of social mobilization, state formation, political violence, and community identity.Greg Grandin, author of The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War

Florencia E. Mallon gives history a human face. Her description of a Mapuche communitys struggle to recover land rights previously lost in extremely adverse conditions underscores the promise of historical work to go way beyond the cold, distanced analysis of things past. The Mapuche navigate the pages of Courage Tastes of Blood with the sturdy competence of devoted craftsmen carving their own destiny.Alcida Rita Ramos, author of Indigenism: Ethnic Politics in Brazil

“In this beautifully written book, Florencia E. Mallon combines a historians sensitivity to context and an ethnographers attention to thick cultural description, capturing the everydayness of life in the midst of rapid social transformation. While focusing primarily on one Mapuche community, she provides important insights into larger histories of social mobilization, state formation, political violence, and community identity. “[RR; PP] Greg Grandin, author of The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Until now, very little about the recent history of the Mapuche, Chiles largest indigenous group, has been available to English-language readers. Courage Tastes of Blood helps to rectify this situation. It tells the story of one Mapuche communityNicols Ailo, located in the south of the countryacross the entire twentieth century, from its founding in the resettlement process that followed the military defeat of the Mapuche by the Chilean state at the end of the nineteenth century. Florencia E. Mallon places oral histories gathered from community members over an extended period of time in the 1990s in dialogue with one another and with her research in national and regional archives. Taking seriously the often quite divergent subjectivities and political visions of the communitys members, Mallon presents an innovative historical narrative, one that reflects a mutual collaboration between herself and the residents of Nicols Ailo.

Mallon recounts the land usurpation Nicols Ailo endured in the first decades of the twentieth century and the communitys ongoing struggle for restitution. Facing extreme poverty and inspired by the agrarian mobilizations of the 1960s, some community members participated in the agrarian reform under the government of socialist president Salvador Allende. With the military coup of 1973, they suffered repression and desperate impoverishment. Out of this turbulent period the Mapuche revitalization movement was born. What began as an effort to protest the privatization of community lands under the military dictatorship evolved into a broad movement for cultural and political recognition that continues to the present day. By providing the historical and local context for the emergence of the Mapuche revitalization movement, Courage Tastes of Blood offers a distinctive perspective on the evolution of Chilean democracy and its rupture with the military coup of 1973.

Courage Tastes of Blood explores how ordinary, marginalized indigenous peoples in Chile construct historical memory in small, discontinuous steps, a process which enables them to sustain a politics of difference in a world where globalization threatens to further homogenize diversity in the name of economic progress and stability. Following this logic in her own practice, Florencia E. Mallon highlights the importance of everyday practices in understanding oral sources, and, in so doing, she challenges readers to reconsider the preconceptions of history as a field of knowledge that reproduces the rationality of power. This is a bold, fascinating, and highly original contribution to our understanding of indigenous lives, repression in Chile, and racism, and it provides a methodological lesson in rethinking fields of inquiry from the perspective of alternative knowledge producers.Arturo Arias, past president of the Latin American Studies Association

Florencia E. Mallon combines a historians sensitivity to context and an ethnographers attention to cultural description, capturing the everydayness of life in the midst of rapid social transformation. While focusing on one Mapuche community, she provides insights into larger histories of social mobilization, state formation, political violence, and community identity.Greg Grandin, author of The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War

Florencia E. Mallon gives history a human face. Her description of a Mapuche communitys struggle to recover land rights previously lost in extremely adverse conditions underscores the promise of historical work to go way beyond the cold, distanced analysis of things past. The Mapuche navigate the pages of Courage Tastes of Blood with the sturdy competence of devoted craftsmen carving their own destiny.Alcida Rita Ramos, author of Indigenism: Ethnic Politics in Brazil

Courage Tastes of Blood: The Mapuche Community of Nicolás Ailío and the Chilean State, 1906–2001 (Radical Perspectives)

Massacre in Mexico

Poniatowska reports on the massacre of 325 unarmed Mexican students who were peacefully protesting police repression one week prior to the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. PW called this “heartbreaking. . . . A massive chronicle that builds to the night of the Tlatelolco massacre in an accumulation of skillfully crosscut eyewitness accounts.” Photos.

Copyright 1991 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Now available in paper is Elena Poniatowska’s gripping account of the massacre of student protesters by police at the 1968 Olympic Games, which Publishers Weekly claimed “makes the campus killings at Kent State and Jackson State in 1970 pale by comparison.”

Massacre in Mexico

Alexander Mackenzie was the first man to cross continental North America, a trip he accomplished by canoe in 1793 – twelve years before Lewis and Clark. Mackenzie’s journal of his explorations appeared in 1801.

Both the Lewis and Clark and the Mackenzie expeditions were conceived as waterborne explorations and owed their strategy to the French explorers, who had proposed, sixty years earlier, that the North American continent could be crossed by going west on either the Saskatchewan or the Missouri, and then linking up with the unidentified “River of the West.”

Acting on this overly-simple thesis, Mackenzie took the fur traders’ route along the Saskatchewan and found his way over to the Fraser, and thence by an Indian trail to the coast.

Mackenzie had an amazingly naive attitude about the wilderness around him and the proper way one should interact with it. But somehow his Dudley Doright personality worked:

“My tent was no sooner pitched, than I summoned the Indians together, and gave each of them about four inches of Brazil tobacco, a dram of spirits, and lighted the pipe…I informed them that I had heard of their misconduct, and was come among them to inquire into the truth of it. I added also that it would be an established rule with me to treat them with kindness, if their behavior should be such as to deserve it; but at the same time, that I should be equally severe if they failed in those returns which I had a right to expect from them. I then presented them with a quantity of rum, which I recommended to be used with discretion, and then added some tobacco, as a token of peace. They, in return, made me the fairest promises; and,having expressed the pride they felt on beholding me in their country, took their leave.”

It seemed as if his handful of men were often on the verge of mutiny. At least one of his guides deserted him. They found a new one:

“About midnight a rustling noise was heard in the woods which created a general alarm, and I was awakened to be informed of the circumstance, but heard nothing…At two in the morning the sentinel informed me, that he saw something like a human figure creeping along on all-fours about fifty paces above us…it proved to be an old, grey-haired, blind man, who had been compelled to leave his hiding-place by extreme hunger, being too infirm to join in the flight of the natives to whom he belonged.”

Mackenzie fed the blind Indian, then drafted the old man as his guide. The party groped its way westward.

Mackenzie’s route to the Pacific Ocean proved too difficult for others to follow, but this does not diminish the value of this great expedition across wild America.

Alexander Mackenzie (1763-1820), explorer and fur trader, was possibly the first white man to cross continental North America. He traveled mostly by canoe, determining his longitude by observing the eclipses of the planet Jupiter’s satellites. He made two trips: one to the Arctic Ocean in 1789, and another to the Pacfic Ocean in 1793 (twelve years before Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark west). This edition includes both journals, plus Mackenzie’s own General History of the Fur Trade.

The Journals of Alexander MacKenzie: Exploring Across Canada in 1789 & 1793

Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West

Now and again a book comes along that simply transcends geographical limits. Epic Wanderer is such a book. . . . Epic Wanderer, like the man himself, covers a lot of ground and does so very well. If you”d like to purchase just one biography on David Thompson, make it this one.American Surveyor (American Surveyor )

Jenish presents a lively version of the explorer”s adventures, detailing the hardships of life on the trail, Thompson”s interactions with aboriginal peoples, and the vast country he traversed.Oregon Historical Quarterly (Arn Keeling Oregon Historical Quarterly )

“Well illustrated and served well by a thorough bibliography, this imaginative reconstruction will whet readers” appetites to seek out the copious literature on Thompson, the ”epic wanderer.””Choice (Choice )

“David Thompson was an important, if little known, explorer of the Canadian West. . . . Jenish tells this remarkable man”s story from the journal Thompson kept throughout his life and the narrative he wrote in his old age. . . . We view the daunting hardships facing a fur trader working far beyond white settlement.”Journal of the West (Donna Roper Journal of the West )

Epic Wanderer, the first full-length biography of mapmaker David Thompson , is set in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries against the broad canvas of dramatic rivalries between the United States and British North America, between the Hudsons Bay Company and its Montreal-based rival, the North West Company, and among the various First Nations thrown into disarray by the advent of guns, horses, and alcohol.

Epic Wanderer: David Thompson and the Mapping of the Canadian West

?[A] useful volume which will prove interesting and readable to its intended audience, and will provide some new information on a somewhat neglected and at times misunderstood country, especially in the last few tragic decades of the twentieth century.?-Bulletin of Spanish Studies –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

This book introduces readers to the history of Chile from its origins to today.

–This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Within Chile is the driest desert in the world, the highest mountain range in the hemisphere, temperate rainforests, and a piece of Antarctica. In all these areas Chileans have created unique communities and, together, a vibrant nation. Chile’s history mirrors its geographic variety. From its pre-colonial period, to its days as a Spanish colony, through its many independent governments, Chile has long been a land of crises and controversy. Beginning with a survey of the land, people, and current government of Chile, the book traces the chronological story of the country. Ten chapters follow the details of Chilean history from the indigenous peoples to the democratic transition after the Pinochet dictatorship. This is the perfect starting point for students and travelers interested in the history and people of Chile.

?[A] useful volume which will prove interesting and readable to its intended audience, and will provide some new information on a somewhat neglected and at times misunderstood country, especially in the last few tragic decades of the twentieth century.?-Bulletin of Spanish Studies –This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

The History of Chile

Chile: A Traveler’s Literary Companion

“All the short stories and excerpts included are tales of the human condition and demonstrate a love and respect for the country and its people.” — British Bulletin of Publications on Latin America, April 2003.

The twenty stories in Chile: A Traveler’s Literary Companion most of which are available here for the first time in English reveal that the nation that gave birth to two poets who won Nobel prizes in literature is also the home of many world-class prose writers. This collection evokes the diversity of the country’s landscape and the complexity of its recent history. Contributors include Luis Alberto Acua, Marjorie Agosn, Roberto Ampuero, Marta Brunet, Francisco Coloane, Adolfo Couve, Jos Donoso, Ariel Dorfman, Jorge Edwards, Beatriz Garca-Huidobro, Pedro Lemebel, Patricio Manns, Tito Matamala, Pablo Neruda, Daro Oses, Hernn Rivera Letelier, Patricio Riveros Olavarra, Osvaldo Rodrguez Musso, Enrique Valds, and Jos Miguel Varas.
Chile: A Traveler’s Literary Companion (Traveler’s Literary Companions)