The Guatemala Reader: History, Culture, Politics ed. by Greg Grandin, Deborah T. Levinson, Elizabeth Oglesby (review)

The Latin Americanist, June 2013 remained the same. Nationalism whether dictated or merely encouraged from above remained all-important. Cuauhtémoc stood at the bottom of a long list of identities (Niños Héroes, Benito Juárez, etc.) fostered by the state in an attempt to forge a national identity. Gillingham also argues, however, that a nationalism independent of federally-organized campaigns evolved following the events in Ixcateopan (pg. 199). While many metropolitan anthropologists and officials balked at the Ixcateopan gravesite after the conclusions presented by the official investigators, a Cuauhtémoc cult emerged from bellow. Groups as diverse as a peasant workers union, and schoolchildren conducted major national rituals celebrating the discovery of the Ixcateopan gravesite, while teachers harangued the Mexican education minister to promote the celebration of Cuauhtémoc. Gillingham shows that in certain ways the government tried to avoid implication in unsponsored national celebrations. Gillingham’s work adds further complexity to an already diverse literature surrounding the role of nationalism and the rise of the Mexican nation-state. His questions though are by no means unique to Mexico, and the book would have been even more compelling if he could have drawn the lessons of Ixcateopan out onto a comparative, multi-national plane. It should however be recommended for its meticulously prepared research, and the ease of its narrative style. Noah Miller Department of History Kansas State University THE GUATEMALA READER: HISTORY, CULTURE, POLITICS. By Greg Grandin, Deborah T. Levinson, & Elizabeth Oglesby (eds.). Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011, p. 688, $29.95. This is a volume in Duke University Press’s series of Latin American Readers, edited by Robin Kirk and Orin Starn. Other volumes in the series to date include Argentina, Brazil, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Peru, and Mexico. Grandin, Levinson, and Oglesby have put together an overview of Guatemalan history along with more than 200 text and graphic selections from the work of scholars, politicians, activists, poets, musicians, artists, photographers, and others reflecting Guatemalan life and culture. While it stretches from pre-Columbian times to the present, the volume concentrates heavily on the years since 1944 and contemporary Guatemala. This large work is also conveniently available in e-book format. Meant as a broad introduction to the country, the editors say they “have struggled to avoid the facile equation of Guatemala’s history, culture , and politics with its long experience of conflict, racism, and violence.” Nine chapters place particular emphasis on indigenous peoples and their struggle against “colonialism, imperialism, and brutality carried out in the 138 Book Reviews name of corporate rapacity” (3). Brief introductions to each chapter don’t give very much of the history of each period, but provide background for the various perspectives that follow. Many of the selections appear in English for the first time. An opening chapter on “The Maya Before the Europeans” is a little disappointing. After an excerpt from the Popul Vuh, four more selections offer only a glimpse of Maya civilization before the Spanish Conquest, ignoring much of the substantial scholarship in this area. A second chapter on the conquest and colonial periods has eleven text selections, beginning with contrasting accounts of the conquest followed by an interesting commentary on the image of Tecu´n Uma´n in Guatemala’s multicultural national history and mythology. George Lovell illustrates the impact of Old World diseases on the native population. Other selections show the mistreatment of the natives by the Spaniards and their descendants, along with geographic descriptions from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Also included are parts of Martha Few’s charming article on “Chocolate, Sex, and Disorderly Women” and Aaron Pollack’s account of the 1812 revolt in Totonicapán. A third chapter, appropriately titled “A Caffeinated Modernism,” reviews the nineteenth century and half of the twentieth, paying considerable attention to the ethnic distinctions and nuances in modern Guatemala as they developed under Liberal rule (1871–1944). A varied selection of travelers ’ accounts, scholarly analyses, and literary excerpts reflect the turmoil and change of the period. Other selections reflect the emergence of indigenismo and the beginnings of new political groupings that challenged Liberal dominance. A fourth chapter, “The Ten Years of Spring and Beyond ,” reflects...