Why use books? Isn't everything online?
No! Most historians rely on detailed monographs to get in-depth information. (Pro-tip: A monograph is a book about a single topic, as opposed to a textbook or encyclopedia.)
There are some great reasons to use books and also reasons not to use them.
1. Books can give detailed information about the topic. Because they are longer than an article, they have more time to prove their main claim or thesis and give more in-depth information and research.
2. Some books are edited collections, which can give you a lot of different points of view about a single topic.
3. Some books represent seminal knowledge. In other words, we know certain things and accept them as fact because someone wrote a book (or many books) about it.
So when shouldn't you use books? Books take a long time to write and can age quickly, so if you need the most current, up-to-date information, books aren't usually the best place for this.
Search for books that have been digitized by Google. If the book is out of copyright, or the publisher has given permission, you'll be able to see a preview of the book, and in some cases the entire text. If it's in the public domain, you're free to download a PDF copy.
Find print and ebooks, other types of sources including DVDs, online videos, eJournals, print journals, and more found in the libraries (not journal articles)
Tip! When it launches into the full GIL-Find catalog, use the "Full Access Online" limiter on the side to retrieve materials available electronically.
Each enrolled student at Augusta University has an account in our catalog system. Use it to track books that you've checked out (and keep up with the due dates!) and items that you've requested from other libraries.
A Companion to Latin American History
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The Companion to Latin American History collects the work of leading experts in the field to create a single-source overview of the diverse history and current trends in the study of Latin America. Presents a state-of-the-art overview of the history of Latin America Written by the top international experts in the field 28 chapters come together as a superlative single source of information for scholars and students Recognizes the breadth and diversity of Latin American history by providing systematic chronological and geographical coverage Covers both historical trends and new areas of interest
Forbidden Passages: Muslims and Moriscos in colonial Spanish America
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During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Spanish authorities restricted emigration to the Americas to those who could prove they had been Catholic for at least three generations. In doing so, they hoped to instill religious orthodoxy in the colonies and believed Muslim converts, or Moriscos, would hamper efforts to convert indigenous people to Catholicism. Nevertheless, Moriscos secretly made the treacherous journey across the ocean, settling in the forbidden territories and influencing the nature of Spanish colonialism. Once landed, Morisco men and women struggled to define and practice their religion or pursue their trades, all while experiencing increasing anxiety about their place in the emerging Spanish empire. Many Moriscos were accused by authorities of descending from Muslims or practicing Islam in secret and turned to the courts to assert their legitimacy. Forbidden Passages is the first book to document and evaluate the impact of Moriscos in the early modern Americas. Through close examination of sources that few historians have used--some one hundred cases of individuals brought before the secular, ecclesiastical, and inquisitorial courts--Karoline P. Cook shows how legislation and attitudes toward Moriscos in Spain assumed new forms and meanings in colonial Spanish America. Moriscos became not simply individuals struggling to join a community that was increasingly hostile to them but also symbols that sparked authorities' fears about maintaining religious purity in the face of territorial expansion. Cook reveals how Morisco emigrants shined a light on the complicated question of what it meant to be Spanish in the New World.
Minor Omissions: Children in Latin American History and Society
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Modern Latin America
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This popular book, now in its fifth edition, is a lively interpretive history that continues to be one of Oxford's most successful books. Modern Latin America, 5/e has been thoroughly revised and expanded. The authors have added socio-cultural sections and boxes to nearly every chapter. It covers such diverse areas as the Argentine Tango, Santería in Cuba, and the recent boom in the popularity of Latin music in the United States, all of which give this edition a distinctly new and exciting flavor. All political and economic information has been brought up-to-date and, as in earlier editions, the authors use an in-depth case study approach that guides readers through the major countries of South America, highlighting central themes including European-New World interaction, racial mixtures, military takeovers, and U.S. intervention in the area.
Race and Nation in Modern Latin America
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This collection brings together innovative historical work on race and national identity in Latin America and the Caribbean and places this scholarship in the context of interdisciplinary and transnational discussions regarding race and nation in the Americas. Moving beyond debates about whether ideologies of racial democracy have actually served to obscure discrimination, the book shows how notions of race and nationhood have varied over time across Latin America's political landscapes. Framing the themes and questions explored in the volume, the editors' introduction also provides an overview of the current state of the interdisciplinary literature on race and nation-state formation. Essays on the postindependence period in Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Peru consider how popular and elite racial constructs have developed in relation to one another and to processes of nation building. Contributors also examine how ideas regarding racial and national identities have been gendered and ask how racialized constructions of nationhood have shaped and limited the citizenship rights of subordinated groups. The contributors are Sueann Caulfield, Sarah C. Chambers, Lillian Guerra, Anne S. Macpherson, Aims McGuinness, Gerardo Renique, James Sanders, Alexandra Minna Stern, and Barbara Weinstein.
Riots in the Cities
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The goal of Riots in the Cities, editors Silvia Marina Arrom and Servando Ortoll contend, is to encourage Latin Americanists to rethink standard notions of urban politics before the populist era. The actual political power wielded by the underprivileged city dwellers before the twentieth century has received little scholarly attention or has been downplayed. Researchers often described urban inhabitants as having little influence over both their lives and on the politics of their day. The elite were perceived as having firm control over the political process. The seven essays in this reader analyze urban riots that broke out in major Latin American population centers between 1765 and 1910. Inspired by the works of Eric Hobsbawm and George Rud_, the authors find that the participants in these riots were far from irrational. The crowds responded to specific social provocation and attacked property rather than people. When taken together these essays challenge the notion that prior to 1910 power was strictly in the hands of the elite. Lower-class city residents, too, held strong opinions and acted on their convictions. Most important, their voices were not unheeded by those who officially wielded power and implemented social policies.
Slavery, Freedom, and Abolition in Latin America and the Atlantic World
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Why slavery was so resilient and how people in Latin America fought against it are the subjects of this compelling study.
The Sweat of Their Brow: a History of Work in Latin America
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Throughout Latin America's history the world of work has been linked to race, class, and gender within the larger framework of changing social, political, and economic circumstances both in the region and abroad. In this compelling narrative, David McCreery situates the work experience in Latin America's broader history. Rather than organizing the coverage by forms of work, he proceeds chronologically, breaking 500 years of history into five periods: Encounter and Accommodation, 1480 -- 1550; The Colonial System, 1550 -- 1750; Cities and Towns, 1750 -- 1850; Export Economies, 1850 -- 1930; Work in Modern Latin America, 1930 -- the Present.Within each period, McCreery discusses the chief economic, political, and social characteristics as they relate to work, identifying both continuities and discontinuities from each preceding period. Specific topics studied range from the encomienda, the enslaving of Indians in Spanish America, the introduction of Black African slaves, labor in mining, agricultural labor, urban and domestic labor, women and work, peasant economies, industrial labor, to the maquilas and more.
