With the greatest income inequality in the world, the nations of the Americas face the challenge of consolidating democratic regimes, improving productivity, and reducing poverty as they enter the twenty-first century. Educational opportunity is central to this threefold challenge. The distinguished contributors to this volume discuss current policies and issues in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States, as they explore the nature of the relationship among education, poverty, and inequality. The book provides impressive evidence linking school participation, the quality of education for poor children in the Americas, and the impact of education policies to promote social justice. Using both qualitative and quantitative data, the book addresses the following sets of questions: How does the education system reproduce social inequality? How does education provide opportunities for social mobility? What are the causal processes involved? What is the direction of this causation? Linking theory and practice, the authors explore the dynamic relationship between educational change and social change, and weigh the significance of their findings for the educational chances of poor children.

Unequal Schools, Unequal Chances: The Challenges to Equal Opportunity in the Americas (David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies)

History

Americas

David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies

As the world transitions from an industrial society to an information society, agriculture has undergone a dramatic transformation. Food production in the 20th century was transformed by three revolutions: first mechanical, then genetic, and finally chemical. Now, in the 21st century, agriculture is going through at least two more revolutions: an information technology revolution leading to precision farming, and a biotechnology revolution leading to genetically engineered crops. 
 Organized by Harvard University's David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies with the collaboration of the Scientific Committee for Problems of the Environment, this interdisciplinary volume examines the impact of a variety of new technological, social, and economic trends on the rural environment.

Globalization and the Rural Environment (Series on Latin American Studies)

Business & Money

Economics

The indigenous people of the hemisphere have resisted a five-hundred-year assault, fighting to maintain their cultural identities. During this time, authorities in the Americas have insisted that the toleration of indigenous societies and cultures would undermine their respective states. In recent years, however, the nations of the Americas have started to reverse themselves. They are altering their constitutions and proclaiming themselves multiethnic. Why is this happening now? The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States, edited by David Maybury-Lewis, helps us understand the reasons and history behind these times of transition. 
 The book provides a valuable overview of current problems facing indigenous peoples in their relation with national states in Latin America, from the highlands of Mexico to the jungles of Brazil. The traditional, sometimes centuries old, relations between states and indigenous peoples are now changing and being rediscussed. The collection, authored by U.S. and Latin American anthropologists using interdisciplinary approaches, enables the reader to understand these recent developments in a comparative framework. An ambitious and quite thorough collection, it is brought together skillfully by one of the discipline's maître penseurs.

The Politics of Ethnicity: Indigenous Peoples in Latin American States (Series on Latin American Studies)

Where Latin American government leaders once looked at free trade agreements as solely about trade and trading policies, they are increasingly viewing them as the next beacon of hope in the long and arduous road of economic reform. 
 Integrating the Americas: FTAA and Beyond discusses how these governments have become embroiled in a larger set of issues affecting both institutions. This work, based on a conference sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank and the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, examines how this free trade process is surging ahead, while at the same time taking on a broader set of issues including institutional reform, transparency, the environment, labor, and social cohesion. The payoffs to the strategy of liberalization, privatization, and openness have been meager and disappointing to date. Will the FTAA be able to reverse this and allow Latin America to reap the benefits of globalization?

Integrating the Americas: FTAA and Beyond

Alan M. Taylor

Estevadeordal, Antoni

DANI RODRIK

Andres Velasco

Can businesses collaborate with nonprofit organizations? Drawing lessons from 24 cases of cross-sector partnerships spanning the hemisphere, Social Partnering in Latin America analyzes how businesses and nonprofits are creating partnerships to move beyond traditional corporate philanthropy. An American supermarket and a Mexican food bank, an Argentine newspaper and a solidarity network, and a Chilean pharmacy chain and an elder care home are just a few examples of how businesses are partnering with community organizations in powerful ways throughout Latin America. The authors analyze why and how such social partnering occurs. The book provides a compelling framework for understanding cross-sector collaborations and identifying motivations for partnering and key levers that maximize value creation for participants and society.

Social Partnering in Latin America: Lessons Drawn from Collaborations of Businesses and Civil Society Organizations (Series on Latin American Studies)

Austin, James E.

Gutiérrez, Roberto

Reficco, Ezequiel

Berger, Gabriel

Fischer, Rosa María

Koljatic, Mladen

Lozano, Gerardo

Ogliastri, Enrique

SEKN, Social Enterprise Knowledge Network

How can Cuba address the challenges of economic development and transformation that have bedeviled so many Latin American and Eastern European countries? What are the universally common macroeconomic and societal challenges it faces and the specific peculiarities that have emerged after a decade-long transformation of its economy? For the Cuban and American social scientists and policy experts writing in this timely and provocative volume, the answer lies in examining Cuba's development trajectory by delving into issues ranging from the political economy of reform to their impact on specific sectors including export development, foreign direct investment, and U.S.-Cuba trade. Moreover, the volume also draws attention to the intersection between economic reform and societal dynamics by exploring changes in household consumption, socio-economic mobility, as well as remittances and their effects, while remaining steadfast in its focus on their policy implications for Cuba's future.

The Cuban Economy at the Start of the Twenty-First Century (Series on Latin American Studies)

Passing Lines seeks to stimulate dialogue on the role of sexuality and sexual orientation in immigration to the U.S. from Latin America and the Caribbean. The book looks at the complexities, inconsistencies, and paradoxes of immigration from the point of view of both academics and practitioners in the field. 
 Passing Lines takes a close look at the debates that surround eyewitness testimony, expertise, and advocacy regarding immigration and sexuality, bringing together work by scholars, activists, and others from both sides of the border.

Passing Lines: Sexuality and Immigration (Series on Latin American Studies)

Politics & Social Sciences

Social Sciences

Bitter Fruit is a comprehensive and insightful account of the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. First published in 1982, this book has become a classic, a textbook case of the relationship between the United States and the Third World. The authors make extensive use of U.S. government documents and interviews with former CIA and other officials. It is a warning of what happens when the United States abuses its power.

Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala, Revised and Expanded (Series on Latin American Studies)

KINZER, STEPHEN

Coatsworth, John H.

Schlesinger, Stephen

Reference

Latin America is a profoundly philanthropic region with deeply rooted traditions of solidarity with the less fortunate. 
 Recently, different forms of philanthropy are emerging in the region, often involving community organization and social change. This volume brings together groundbreaking perspectives on such diverse themes as corporate philanthropy, immigrant networks, and new grant-making and operating foundations with corporate, family, and community origins.

Philanthropy and Social Change in Latin America (Series on Latin American Studies)

First written in 1570, this work now published for the first time in modern Spanish with an English translation sheds light on the Inqa (Inca) world. The writing of Instrucción followed more than a decade of negotiations and skirmishes between Inqa rebels and Spanish officials who were receiving their orders from Spain to find a diplomatic, or alternatively violent, solution to integrate these independently governed territories under Spanish colonial rule.

Titu Cusi: A 16th Century Account of the Conquest (Series on Latin American Studies)

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Books by David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies