La agricultura en tierras mexicanas desde sus orígenes hasta nuestros días

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Aleksandr B. Kamenskii

Russia's eighteenth-century drive toward modernity and empire under the two "greats" - Peter I and Catherine II - is fully captured in this new work by one of Russia's outstanding young historians. Kamenskii develops three themes: Russia's encounter with European civilization; the transformation of "Holy Russia" into a multinational empire; and the effects of efforts from above to modernize Russia selectively along Western lines. Writing in a clear, crisp style, the author enlivens his narrative with observations from contemporary literary figures and political commentators that illuminate the significance of the events he describes. In preparing this first history of eighteenth-century Russia to be written in many years, Kamenskii has drawn on the work of several generations of historians from many nations. His goal - gracefully achieved - has been to produce a readable, one-volume synthesis revealing the events and processes that were of greatest importance in transforming Russia into one of the world's most lasting empires.

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Marlene Tromp

"Exploring the central metaphor of marital violence in these novels, Marlene Tromp uncovers the relationship between the representations of such violence in fiction and in the law. Her investigation demonstrates that sensational constructions of gender, marriage, "brutal" relationships, and even murder, were gradually incorporated into legal debates and realist fiction as the Victorian understanding of what was "real" changed."--BOOK JACKET.

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Kristin Boudreau

"In this chronicle of the role of sympathy in American literature and culture from the colonial period to the Gilded Age, Boudreau shows how the sentiment of fellow-feeling was repeatedly recruited at moments of national and personal crisis.". "Unlike many treatments of attachment and sentimentality, this book avoids positing either the radical or the conservative account of sympathy. Drawing on a range of texts from John Winthrop's 1630 "Model of Christian Charity" to William James's 1902 Varieties of Religious Experience, the work explores the entire complicated legacy of sympathy in American culture. In examining what she calls the "cultural fiction" of consanguinity, or shared blood, the author illuminates both its possibilities for soothing social and political divisions as well as its social and psychological costs. In one of the few books to trace the influence of writers of the Early Republic on antebellum sentimental works, Boudreau offers an array of examples from inside and outside the canon to illustrate that sentimental culture did not end with the Civil War."--BOOK JACKET.

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Patterson Toby Graham

"The tradition of American public libraries is closely tied to the perception that these institutions should be open to all without regard to social background. Such was not the case in the segregated South, however, where public libraries barred entry to millions of African Americans and provided tacit support for a culture of white supremacy. A Right to Read is the first book to examine public library segregation from its origins in the late 19th century through its end during the tumultuous years of the 1960s civil rights movement. Graham focuses on Alabama, where African Americans, denied access to white libraries, worked to establish and maintain their own "Negro branches." These libraries - separate but never equal - were always underfunded and inadequately prepared to meet the needs of their constituencies."--BOOK JACKET.