Ah, quando fia ch'io possa in Italia tornar? Ha ormai tre mesi, che in questi rei paese Già fatto schiavo, e dal mio ben lontano …

Alas, when might I return to my Italy?

For three months now I have been enslaved in this evil land, so distant from my home

Gioacchino Rossini, L'Italiana in Algeri

Nineteenth-century travel accounts contributed to the existing body of knowledge about the world at the time they were written, and today they serve as witness to the merging of expansionist progress with the scientific state. The primary function of these accounts was to circumscribe the world of rationality. Their authors were enlightened nomads whose duty was to incorporate new and astonishing facts as objects of knowledge into their writing, which created a mise en scène of mysterious plots; this process was in fact the first globalisation. Romanticism organised this narrative into a powerful textual montage on alterity, which combined scientific discourse, aesthetic response, and humanistic concern. Such a multifaceted set of characteristics posed serious challenges for the traveller-writer of that era, and Latin Americans had their own grand tour.

Richard Vowell was a British mercenary who served in the Wars of Independence in Hispanic America. A study of his writings offers a new perspective from which to reconsider the influential arguments of the section of Mary Louise Pratt's Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation (London and New York, 1992) that deals with European travel in the region in the period. The analysis centres on the ways in which Vowell depicted Hispanic American masculinities, indigenous peoples, collective identities and the diverse groups that made up society during the wars of independence. Vowell's writings suggest that further sources might be read against the traditional canon of commercial travel literature generally used by historians for the period 1800–1850.

Female heads of households in the migrant-exporting community of Jima, Ecuador, are using remittances to employ domestic workers. As both workers and ‘mistresses’ originate from the same mestizo peasant class, these new labour relations do not reflect embedded class inequalities, but are rather emerging as a new mode of distinction between newly prosperous households and those for whom migration has been a less successful strategy. This lends a temporal fragility and fluidity to household relations, as worker and employer seek to define their roles and establish hierarchies. Employers negotiate these tensions not only to reduce their own burden of labour, but also because domestic workers are a symbol of social mobility and help enhance the reputation of migrant men. Thus, while men are physically absent, they continue to inform the reorganisation of the Jimeño household, and there is little to suggest that gender roles are being realigned in a structurally significant manner.

International pressure to suppress cocaine trafficking sustained decades of harsh drug laws in Bolivia against cocaleros (coca producers), thus affecting coca production for traditional consumption and for manufacturing illicit cocaine. These harsh drug laws caused social unrest in cocalero communities outside traditional coca zones. President Evo Morales, leader of the Movimiento al Socialismo (Movement toward Socialism, MAS) party, implemented ‘Coca Yes, Cocaine No’ (CYCN), a harm-reduction strategy that authorised ‘non-traditional’ farmers to cultivate legal coca and self-police production. This article compares CYCN outcomes in Bolivia's traditional and non-traditional coca regions and finds that strong cocalero organisations were vital to CYCN success in non-traditional areas. In contrast, organised resistance in traditional zones restricted CYCN success and added to regime instability in the lead-up to Morales’ forced resignation in 2019. Hence, while Morales harnessed state power to change drug policy, he was constrained by the rural grassroots organisations that brought him to power.

The city of Santiago de Querétaro lies about 120 miles north of Mexico City on the edge of the plains of the Bajío. Founded in 1562 by Fernando de Tapia, an Otomí chieftain, it soon attracted Spanish settlements, so that by 1609 it became a villa and in 1656 a city.1 The time when it became famous for its prosperity was the eighteenth century. It was in this period that Querétaro replaced Puebla as the chief centre of the woollen textile industry since it lay closer to the great sheep estancias of Coahuila. The north was also the chief market for its cloth. But according to the Capuchin Friar, Francisco de Ajofrín, the maize and wheat trade of the haciendas of the surrounding district was more important than the textile industry and the workshops specializing in leather goods. As we shall see, the families which owned these estates often lived in Querétaro, so that the city was te residence of a wealthy local élite composed of merchants, obrajeros and landowners.

This article is concerned with the implementation of the Anglo-Argentine 14th July 1999 Joint Statement relating to the Falklands/Malvinas and the South West Atlantic. Initial consideration is given to the recent historical and political context of the Falklands/Malvinas dispute. The arrest of General Pinochet in London is shown to have been a significant factor in Anglo-Argentine relations during the period of 1998–1999. Thereafter, the background relating to the 14th July 1999 Joint Statement is considered in some detail as it relates to fishing, travel, place names, land mines and an Argentine war memorial on the Falkland Islands. Each element of the Joint Statement is shown to be problematic, and the article concludes with the belief that the provisions of the Joint Statement will continue to strengthen the rapprochement between Britain and Argentina without making any substantial progress towards the eventual solution of the dispute over the Falklands/Malvinas.

This article analyses Catholic responses to persecution of the Church by the Mexican state during Mexico's cristero rebellion (1926–9) and seeks to make a new contribution to the revolt's religious history. Faced with the Calles regime's anticlericalism, the article argues, Mexico's episcopate developed an alternative cultic model premised on a revitalised lay religion. The article then focuses on changes and continuities in lay – clerical relations, and on the new religious powers of the faithful, now empowered to celebrate ‘white’ masses and certain sacraments by themselves. The article concludes that persecution created new spaces for lay religious participation, showing the 1910–40 Revolution to be a period of religious, as well as social, upheaval.

This essay examines the Spanish reconcentración of Cuban peasants during the final war of independence. It argues that the forced relocation of the rural population produced negative associations between Cuban guajiros and blackness, criminality and disease that furthered the political interests of the Cuban, Spanish and US militaries. The essay also highlights how the US military occupation that followed independence reinforced the criminalisation of the guajiro and organised existing urban and rural divisions in Cuba.

Anastasio Bustamante is one of the forgotten men of early nineteenth-century Mexican history. Like many of his contemporaries during the so-called age of Santa Anna – José Maria Tornel, Gabriel Valencia, Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, Mariano Paredes y Arrillaga, to name only a few – he has attracted scant attention of biographers and little serious study has been made of his long and eventful career. Yet Bustamante was in full control of the presidency, as president or vice-president, for a longer period in total than any president before Porfirio Díaz and he presided over crucial stages in the nation's development from colony to sovereign republic. By ideological conviction or political expediency – it is still not clear which – he came to be the figurehead of the conservative, traditionalist forces in Mexican society which struggled to preserve not only their economic control but also their religious, social and moral values against what they considered to be the destructive onslaught of increasingly fashionable and radical liberal ideas. Born in 1780 at Jiquilpan (Michoacán), son of Spanish parents, trained as a doctor, Bustamante fought for the royalist cause in the war of independence until he joined with Iturbide in the plan of Iguala (1821). Various important political posts followed and he first rose to supreme power in 1829 when, as vice-president, he successfully led a rebellion against president Vicente Guerrero.

The involvement of Christians in the Nicaraguan Revolution is a clear manifestation of the profound changes taking place within the Nicaraguan Church as a whole. While a clear majority of the clergy took a stand against the injustices of the Somoza regime, a smaller group of priests and religious demonstrated a more profound commitment to radical structural transformation of society. Although their efforts to organize and concientizar1 rural and urban poor had serious political implications – in fact, many joined the guerrilla as a result of the ‘radicalization of their faith’ – to these priests and religious the political solutions available to counter growing social injustices and government abuses were few: either fight or capitulate. The bishops, on the other hand, were cautious about the pace of change and rejected the violent option, choosing instead an intermediate path. Unfortunately, such an option proved futile in the case of Nicaragua, and finally the bishops justified armed revolution as a viable alternative to systematic repression.

This article examines the politics of literacy during the administration of Chilean President Eduardo Frei. Literacy training was an essential part of Christian Democratic efforts to promote agrarian reform and rural unionisation and incorporate the peasantry into the Chilean political system. Paulo Freire, working for the ministries of agriculture and education, was able to employ his innovative ‘consciousness raising’ techniques throughout Chile. In practice, the campaign often blurred the line between creating a critical consciousness and creating a Christian Democratic consciousness, while Freire himself became caught up in political struggles within the administration over the extent and pace of reform.

One of the main conclusions of this commentary is that the Real plan – the stabilisation programme introduced in Brazil in July 1994 which was quite successful in bringing inflation down from the extremely high levels that prevailed before that period – did not attack the main cause of the country's inflation, that is, the large financial imbalance in the public sector. Instead, inflation was reduced in an indirect way, by freezing government-controlled prices and wages. In mid-1998, the programme still relies on extremely high interest rates and a tight control of the exchange rate. The main weakness of the plan is that, with the overvalued currency, trade deficits are accumulating. Also, very high interest rates have brought the economy to a halt and caused a sharp increase in the government debt.

This article explores the international expansion of Mexican banks and its implications for the domestic banking system during the decade leading up to the 1982 debt crisis. In contrast to the prevalent focus in the literature on profitability and performance, I examine the asset and liability structure of the banking sector and show that there were clear signs of deterioration in its financial condition well before the onset of the crisis. Financial statement analysis reveals that the banks engaged in international lending and foreign funding were the ones with the greatest propensity to be adversely affected by this problem. The international expansion of Mexican banks emerged and developed as an exit option to domestic funding problems and increasing competition from foreign bank loans, in a context of growing needs for financing and foreign exchange in Mexico.

Within a short time span Brazil became one of the world's largest producers of defence hardware. In 1987, Brazil was the fifth largest exporter of arms worldwide and the second largest arms producer among the newly industrialised countries (NICs). This article argues that the roots of this rapid development of the Brazilian Defence Industry (BDI) lie in the vital role of multinational companies (MNCs) and in the harmonious tripod orchestrated by the Brazilian government. The State, through its interaction with the Brazilian private sector and with subsidiaries of MNCs, brought together the political support, a supply of funds, the manufacturing capability and technology that are vital in any attempt to establish an indigenous defence industry. Above all, the Brazilian government achieved the balanced coordination of these variables essential for maintaining the dynamics of the industry.

This article unveils the continuous and productive relationship that developed between Chile and the IMF during Salvador Allende's presidency (1970–73). This counter-intuitive relationship was made possible by the systematic depoliticisation and technocratisation of the ties between them. By downplaying ideological discrepancies and keeping a high degree of autonomy, the IMF and Chilean technocrats blurred rigid Cold War divides and circumvented the US-imposed embargo against Allende's regime. The examination of this relationship sheds new light on Allende's positioning in the international arena and provides a unique prism to reconsider dichotomist perceptions of the Cold War in Latin America.

This article reassesses the influence of American business on US foreign policy towards Nicaragua, 1893–1912. It describes three episodes that involved American interests in Nicaragua – the Reyes uprising of 1899, the Emery claim of 1903–1909, and the US & Nicaragua Mining Company claim of 1908–1912 – as evidence for a different interpretation of US policy, one which stresses how the influence and material interests of American ‘men on the spot’ framed the ways in which the State Department came to understand American aims in Nicaragua. Earlier accounts of ‘Dollar Diplomacy’ do not adequately acknowledge the significant political consequences of American merchant activity on the Mosquito Coast.

Using interviews with former militants and previously unpublished documents, this article traces the genesis and internal dynamics of the Ejército Revolucionario del Pueblo (People's Revolutionary Army, ERP) in El Salvador during the early years of its existence (1970–6). This period was marked by the inability of the ERP to maintain internal coherence or any consensus on revolutionary strategy, which led to a series of splits and internal fights over control of the organisation. The evidence marshalled in this case study sheds new light on the origins of the armed Salvadorean Left and thus contributes to a wider understanding of the processes of formation and internal dynamics of armed left-wing groups that emerged from the 1960s onwards in Latin America.

With polling and municipal level data, we analyse the determinants of Salvador Allende's presidential election victory in 1970 and the change in political and electoral support for his government (1970–3). Support for Allende is explained by ideology more than by social class, socio-demographic variables or the economic performance of the country. Allende won in 1970 as an opposition candidate when the outgoing Frei administration enjoyed high approval and the country was experiencing favourable economic conditions. In 1973, when Allende had 49.7% approval, ideology remained the strongest determinant of presidential approval. Economic variables and social class are less important in explaining electoral support for Allende and for his Popular Unity coalition.