Synopses & Reviews
Born on the unlit streets of Buenos Aires, tango was inspired by the music of European immigrants who crossed the ocean to Argentina, lured by the promise of a better life. It found its home in the city’s marginal districts, where it was embraced and shaped by young men who told stories of prostitutes, petty thieves, and disappointed lovers through its music and movements. Chronicling the stories told through tango’s lyrics, Mike Gonzalez and Marianella Yanes reveal in Tango how the dance went from slumming it in the brothels and cabarets of lower-class Buenos Aires to the ballrooms of Paris, London, Berlin, and beyond. Tracing the evolution of tango, Gonzalez and Yanes set its music, key figures, and the dance itself in their place and time. They describe how it was not until Paris went crazy for tango just before World War I that it became acceptable for middle-class Argentineans to perform the seductive dance, and they explore the renewed enthusiasm with which each new generation has come to it. Telling the sexy, enthralling story of this stylish and dramatic dance, Tango is a book for casual fans and ballroom aficionados alike.
Review
“The authors follow the dance through its increased sophistication with the incorporation of the accordion, its subsequent fashionability in Paris, London, and New York and its connection with the political turbulence of 20th-century Argentina. Highly informative, and peppered with lyrics to illustrate their points.” Glasgow Herald
Review
Authors Mike Gonzalez and Marianella Yates do a masterful job of painting a literary portrait of tango that is both interesting and affecting; appealing equally to the devoted historian of Peronism as it will to the casual fan of the dance. . . . I first picked up my copy of
Tango hoping that I would not find yet another dry, seemingly uninspired academic history of one of my favorite art forms. What I found was a book that inspired me to hit the dance floor as much as it did to hit the library in order to delve deeper into tangos complex history. This is a book that will provide the budding fan of tango with all of the necessary background information and inspiration to embark on a love affair with the magnificent dance.”
Popmatters
Review
“Captivating and insightful. . . . The book delivers a beautifully depicted and well-informed history, chronicling the diverse characters and ingredients that have formed tango then and now. Suitable for the uninitiated and tango aficionado alike,
Tango: Sex and Rhythm of the City is time deliciously spent.”
Dance International
Review
“Seminal.”
Review
“Water is a resource that belongs to all of us, and in this perceptive yet accessible book Mike Gonzalez takes issue with the way global capitalism has redefined water as a commodity, and depicts the bitter harvest that has resulted from water privatization.”
Review
“Gonzalez and Yanes have produced a definitive analysis of the current world water challenge. This book details how the 'modern' world has created a shortage unprecedented in human history while separating the popular theme of domestic consumption from the true water consumers: the corporations. To understand the ‘crisis of governance’ that has changed water as a human right to a profitable commodity for financial interests, you must read The Last Drop.”
Review
“In this sobering account of hydro-politics, Gonzalez and Yanes remind us that human greed—not environmental inadequacy—lies at the heart of the global water 'crisis.' The authors call for a ‘New International Water Order,’ born out of the needs and realties of ordinary people. This book is a must-read for all those wishing to end corporate control of everyday life.”
Review
“Books like this are rare. Eloquent, poetic, enraged, committed, Marxist, environmentalist, written from the Global South, a book full of the fire and feeling of the Latin American social movements. The authors are activists, so they love the earth, hate capitalist inequality, and write in hope.”
Synopsis
The one indispensable resource, water is increasingly controlled and even owned by private capital. By 2012, water was a trillion-dollar industry—and as population growth, industrial production, and ecological change make scarcity ever-more common, water may well become the source of military and political conflict in the years to come.
This book looks at how we got here and what we can and should do next. Laying out the complex arguments surrounding water, its ownership and access to it, Mike Gonzalez and Marianella Yanes make the technical and scientific aspects of the discussion clear and accessible—and thereby enable themselves to make the political questions more urgent. Pushing back against the market fundamentalists, the authors argue that it is both possible and necessary that considerations of equity and social justice prevail in the debates about water. Powerful and polemical, The Last Drop will be a vital resource for water activists worldwide.
About the Author
Mike Gonzalez is professor emeritus of Latin American studies at University of Glasgow in Scotland.Marianella Yanes is a Venezuelan writer, journalist, and playwright. She wrote soap operas for a number of Latin American television channels and worked in theater for many years.
Table of Contents
Prologues
1. Strangers in the City
2. A City Divided
3. Tango Goes to Paris
4. Tango Finds Its Voice
5. Gardel and the Golden Age
6. The Dying of the Light
7. Astor Piazzola and Tango Nuevo
8. The Long Road Home
Chronology
References
Select Bibliography
Discography and Filmography
Acknowledgements
Copyright AcknowledgementsIndex