Synopses & Reviews
Thirty years ago the University of California Press published an unusual manuscript by an anthropology student named Carlos Castaneda.
The Teachings of Don Juan initiated a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda's now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of
seeing that it presents and the revolution in cognition it demands.
In a series of fascinating dialogues, Castaneda sets forth his partial initiation with don Juan Matus, a Yaqui Indian shaman from the state of Sonora, Mexico. He describes don Juan's perception and mastery of the "non-ordinary reality" and how peyote along with other plants sacred to the Mexican Indians were used as gateways to the mysteries of "dread," "clarity," and "power." The Teachings of Don Juan is the story of a remarkable journey that has left an indelible impression on the life of more than a million readers around the world.
"For me there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length. And there I travel, looking, looking breathlessly."Don Juan
"Carlos Castaneda, under the tutelage of don Juan, takes us through the moment of twilight, through the crack in the universe between daylight and dark into a world not merely other than our own, but of an entirely different order of reality."Walter Goldschmidt, from the Foreword
Review
and#8220;El Cinco de Mayo does what I once thought impossible: explain the relevance and the importance of commemorating this day.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;A highly readable and important analysis not only of the holidayand#8217;s origins but also of the native-born and immigrant Latino communities that created it.and#8221;
Synopsis
The hallucinogenic and medicinal effects of peyote have a storied history that begins well before the discovery of the New World. While some have attempted to explain the cultural and religious significance of this cactus and drug, Alexander Dawson offers a completely new way of understanding the place of peyote in history. In this provocative new book, Dawson argues that peyote has marked the boundary between the Indian and the West since the Spanish Inquisition outlawed it in 1620. For nearly four centuries ecclesiastical, legal, scientific, and scholarly authorities have tried (unsuccessfully) to police that boundary to ensure that while indigenous subjects might consume peyote, others could not. Moving back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border, The Peyote Effect explores how battles over who might enjoy a right to consume peyote have unfolded in both countries, and how these conflicts have produced the racially exclusionary systems that characterizes modern drug regimes. Through this approach we see a surprising history of the racial thinking that binds these two countries more closely than we might otherwise imagine.
Synopsis
This engaging book provides a broad and accessible analysis of Mexico's contemporary struggle for democratic development. Now completely revised, it brings up to date issues ranging from electoral reform and accountability to drug trafficking, migration, and NAFTA. It also considers the rapidly changing role of Mexico's mass and elite groups, and its national institutions, including the media, the military, and the Church.
Synopsis
PRAISE FOR THE FIRST
Synopsis
Why is Cinco de Mayoand#151;a holiday commemorating a Mexican victory over the French at Puebla in 1862and#151;so widely celebrated in California and across the United States, when it is scarcely observed in Mexico? As David E. Hayes-Bautista explains, the holiday is not Mexican at all, but rather an American one, created by Latinos in California during the mid-nineteenth century. Hayes-Bautista shows how the meaning of Cinco de Mayo has shifted over timeand#151;it embodied immigrant nostalgia in the 1930s, U.S. patriotism during World War II, Chicano Power in the 1960s and 1970s, and commercial intentions in the 1980s and 1990s. Today, it continues to reflect the aspirations of a community that is engaged, empowered, and expanding.
Synopsis
and#147;David Hayes-Bautistaand#8217;s fascinating study finds new sources that illuminate the California roots of Cinco de Mayo celebrations. But more than just uncovering the holidayand#8217;s true origins,
El Cinco de Mayo offers a striking interpretation of the making of a Mexican-American culture in Civil War-Era North America.and#8221;and#151;Stephen Aron, author of
American Confluence: The Missouri Frontier from Borderland to Border State.
and#147;In this well-written and thoroughly-researched study, Hayes-Bautista reminds us that Cinco de Mayo is not really a Mexican holiday, but rather a celebration created in California during the American Civil War by native-born Latinos and immigrants from Mexico and Latin America. Hayes-Bautista has reconstructed the rich social and political world of these California Latinos in painstaking detail, and his analysis of their widespread political engagement reveals an activism hitherto not fully recognized. This is an original and revealing book that changes the way we think about nineteenth century California.and#8221;and#151;Richard Griswold del Castillo, author of The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: A Legacy of Conflict.
Synopsis
MORE THAN ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD Synopsis
Spirit Wars is an exploration of the ways in which the destruction of spiritual practices and beliefs of native peoples in North America has led to conditions of collective suffering--a process sometimes referred to as cultural genocide. Ronald Niezen approaches this topic through wide-ranging case studies involving different colonial powers and state governments: the seventeenth-century Spanish occupation of the Southwest, the colonization of the Northeast by the French and British, nineteenth-century westward expansion and nationalism in the swelling United States and Canada, and twentieth-century struggles for native people's spiritual integrity and freedom. Each chapter deals with a specific dimension of the relationship between native peoples and non-native institutions, and together these topics yield a new understanding of the forces directed against the underpinnings of native cultures.
Synopsis
"Niezen's fascinating analysis explores indigenism as a key concept of present-day international relations."and#151;Jean-Loup amselle, author of Mestizo Logics: Anthropology of Identity in Africa and Elsewhere
Synopsis
Forty years ago the University of California Press published an unusual manuscript by an anthropology student named Carlos Castaneda. The Teachings of Don Juan initiated a generation of seekers dissatisfied with the limitations of the Western worldview. Castaneda's now classic book remains controversial for the alternative way of seeing that it presents and the revolution in cognition it demands. Whether read as ethnographic fact or creative fiction, it is the story of a remarkable journey that has left an indelible impression on the life of more than a million readers around the world.
Synopsis
Synopsis
OVER ONE MILLION COPIES SOLD
The life story of Ishi, the Yahi Indian, lone survivor of a doomed tribe, is unique in the annals of North American anthropology. For more than forty years, Theodora Kroeber's biography has been sharing this tragic and absorbing drama with readers all over the world.
Ishi stumbled into the twentieth century on the morning of August 29, 1911, when, desperate with hunger and with terror of the white murderers of his family, he was found in the corral of a slaughter house near Oroville, California. Finally identified as an Indian by an anthropologist, Ishi was brought to San Francisco by Professor T. T. Waterman and lived there the rest of his life under the care and protection of Alfred Kroeber and the staff of the University of California's Museum of Anthropology.
About the Author
Daniel C. Levy, Distinguished Professor at the State University of New York, Albany, is the coauthor of Mexico: Paradoxes of Stability and Change (1983). Kathleen Bruhn, Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Santa Barbara, is the author of Taking on Goliath: The Emergence of a New Left Party and the Struggle for Democracy in Mexico (1997). Emilio Zebadand#250;a, Harvard University Ph.D. and ex-Secretary of Political Affairs for the state of Chiapas, is now a member of the Mexican Congress.
Table of Contents
Acronyms and Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
Map
Foreword by Lorenzo Meyer
1. The Changing Course of Development
2. Legacies of Undemocratic Development
3. The Rise of Political Competition
4. Difficult Democracy
5. The State and the Market
6. Mexico in a U.S.-Led World
7. Bilateral Issues
8. The Struggle for Democratic Development
Notes
Selected References
Index