Frontier Expansion in Amazonia edited by Marianne Schmink and Charles H. Wood. University of Flor- ida Press, 1984, 502 pp., $12 (paper). This collection of academic papers from a 1982 conference, covering In- dians, colonization, agriculture, ranch- ing potential, and state and business policy, is a required reference on de- velopment policy and its effects on society and ecology in the Amazon. Extensive bibliographies annexed to each article make it particularly useful for researchers. The Last Frontier: Fighting Over Land in the Amazon by Sue Branford and Oriel Glock. Zed Press Ltd., 1985, 336 pp., $30.95 (c4oth), $12.95 (pa- per). A riveting account of the violent conquest of the Amazon since the mid- 1960s written by a journalist and a sociologist. The brutal details of repression by police, soldiers and landowners’ hired guns offer a rich and devastating picture of the tragic human consequences of Brazil’s development policies. The book offers a brief history of those policies and shows how peasants and Indians are fighting back. Underdeveloping the Amazon: Ex- traction, Unequal Exchange, and the Failure of the Modern State by Stephen G. Bunker. University of Illi- nois Press, 1985, 279 pp., $24.50 (cloth). Histories of underdevelopment tend to focus on either external factors-like imperialism and dependency-or internal factors, such as modes of production. Bunker sets out to explain the articulation of both internal and external forces in the Amazon. The book is particularly use- ful for understanding the many colos- sal failures of Brazilian development policy. Indigenous Peoples and Tropical Forests: Models of Land Use and Management from Latin America by Jason W. Clay. Cultural Survival, 1988, 116 pp., $8 (paper). Just because using tropical forest for cattle grazing or large-scale ag- riculture has proven to be an eco- nomic and ecological disaster does not mean that the resources of the tropical forests cannot be harvested in a useful and sustainable way. This book sur- veys the traditional and not-so-tradi- tional ways that many tropical Indian groups of Latin America manage their natural resources. Clay summarizes current research and points out areas of priority for further investigation which could provide answers to the seemingly hopeless cycle of destruc- tion that tropical America now faces. Sister Cities: Side By Side photo- graphed by Dan Higgins. Green Val- ley Film and Art, Inc., 1988, 64 pp., $14.95 (paper). Photographer Dan Higgins has cap- tured the people and places of Burling- ton, Vermont and its sister city Puerto Cabezas, Nicaragua. The result is a compilation of photographic pairs showing the two cities’ firemen, li- brary, city hall, bar, vendors, court- house, laundry, taxi drivers, elemen- tary school, church, and other local spots. In his foreword, Alexander Cockburn asks “Could this kind of project have been done twenty years ago, where the images would not have been of Vermonters and Nicaraguans, but Vermonters and Vietnamese? The answer…is no.” Solidarity with Nica- ragua has meant a “communication of knowledge, shared by many thousands of people for whom Nicaragua and the Nicaraguan Revolution have been emotionally, intellectually…accessible in a way that Vietnam and its revolu- tion never were.” Higgins’ photo- graphs are an attempt to add to that accessibility by going beyond the media images and presenting “those places where people regularly gather.” The Politics of Antipolitics edited by Brian Loveman and Thomas M. Da- vies, Jr. University of Nebraska Press, 1989, 517 pp., $15.95 (paper). A collection of speeches, essays and documents by Latin and U.S. mili- tary officers and analysts with addi- tional historical background by the editors. Focuses on the Latin Ameri- can military’s ideological tradition of what the editors call “antipolitics,” that is, the rejection of “politics” de- fined as conflict among personalist factions and political parties over ide- ology or power, and politicians’ sub- ordination of national welfare to per- sonal ambition and corruption. The editors argue that the military’s con- tempt for politicians and belief in their own moral superiority is what moti- vates them to intervene. A good re- search source but weak on the U.S. role in reshaping the region’s armed forces for its own ends. A Century of Debt Crisis: From Independence to the Great Depres- sion, 1820-1930 by Carlos Marichal. Princeton University Press, 1989, 283 pp., $16.50 (paper). A valuable history of Latin Amer- ica’s debt crises with a comparative analysis of four major crises in the 19th and early 20th centuries and their links to the international financial pan- ics of 1825, 1873, 1890 and 1929. The epilogue puts the current crisis in his- torical perspective, maintaining that it stems more from structural causes than did earlier ones, and is therefore more difficult to resolve. A major difference between the borrowing spree of the 1970s and those of the past is how much went towards military projects. Significantly, in no period of modem Latin American history has financial corruption reached such heights nor has political repression been so ex- treme as today. Sellers and Servants: Working Women in Lima, Peru by Ximena Bunster and Elsa M. Chaney. Bergin and Garvey Publishers, Inc., 1989, $18.95 (paper). The lives of women street peddlers and domestic servants told in the vivid and moving words of the women them- selves. Many start their working lives as young live-in maids surviving on the employer family’s food and shelter (and little to no salary). When they bear children, usually out of wedlock, they are forced to leave the family’s employment and must turn to selling goods on the street. Descriptions of specific occupations are especially memorable, such as the better paid but exhausted laundress. One woman says that at times “I can’t continue. I ache all over, and I am damp through and through.” The reader comes away with an appreciation not just of their suffering, but of their immense per- sonal strength.
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