In this episode, historian Paulina Alberto joins us to talk about her award-winning book Black Legend, published by Cambridge University Press in 2022. Celebrated with the 2023 Bolton-Johnson Prize for Best Book in Latin American History and the 2023 Southern Cone Section Award for Best Book in the Social Sciences, Black Legend has quickly become a must-read. Tune in to discover the groundbreaking insights of Alberto’s second monograph and learn more about her inspiring academic journey.

El Estado Rural estudia la política interna de una comunidad de la sierra central peruana, desde principios del siglo XX, cuando el estado peruano reconoció la legalidad de las comunidades indígenas, hasta finales del conflicto armado en la década de 1990. Este largo arco temporal permite al autor analizar un siglo de intervenciones estatales y mercantiles en el campo y sus repercusiones en la vida rural.

Several scholars, including Joanne Rappaport, Sinclair Thomson, Gavin O'Toole, and Bret Gustafson, have praised Brooke Larson's book as a monumental, meticulously documented history of Indigenous education in twentieth-century Bolivia.

Los historiadores Lina Britto y Ricardo López Pedreros -editores de dos volúmenes, Historias de soledad e Historias de perplejidad- reflexionan sobre las trayectorias personales y académicas que impulsaron la producción de esta obra, las condiciones de producción de conocimiento en Estados Unidos y América Latina, y la importancia de utilizar Colombia como lente para mirar a las Américas y al mundo.

Rafael Archondo and Isabel Siles’ Sobre un barril de pólvora, is a comprehensive review of the former president’s life, Hernan Siles Zuazo (1913-1996). He was one of the founding members of the nationalist revolutionary party (MNR) in 1942. He was elected two times as president (1956-1960 and 1982-1985), and his role was vital to consolidate revolutionary achievements like Agrarian Reform or social participation and pluralistic democracy.

The authors highlight Siles Zuazo’s commitment to human rights and civil liberties. During his tenure, power was peacefully transferred to the next elected president. Siles was a kind of tragic hero because of his conviction in using peaceful means in political struggles.

Dr. Sarah Hines explores residents of Cochabamba struggle for access to water that is linked to broader historical processes such as the dispossession and dismantling of indigenous communities in the 19th century, the Bolivian revolution of 1952, and the dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s.

Her book argues that the Cochabambinos defeated privatization in the Water War in 2000 because they defended something they had fought for and won decades earlier, especially in the context of the 1952 revolution.

Dr. Nicole Pacino is an associate professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Nicole has studied the effects of the policies of the 1952 Revolution on rural health, particularly on indigenous women. Her work shows how maternity was a central axis of the nationalist policies of the MNR that strived to create/consolidate the nation.

Elizabeth Shesko argues that conscription evolved into a pact between the state and society. It was not only imposed from above but also embraced from below because it provided a space for Bolivians across divides of education, ethnicity, and social class to negotiate their relationships with each other and the state.

Shesko contends that state formation built around military service has been characterized in Bolivia by multiple layers of negotiation and accommodation. The resulting nation-state was and is still hierarchical and divided by profound differences, but it never was simply an assimilatory project. It instead reflected a dialectical process to define the state and its relationships.

Kevin Young traces the history of Bolivian struggles over mineral and hydrocarbon resources, highlighting the complex legacies of Bolivia’s 1952 revolution.

His work also revolves around the various economic projects that party officials, political party leaders, activists, urban factory workers, university students, and mine workers proposed to address a key question for Bolivians: How to overcome economic dependency and underdevelopment?

To make sense of these debates, Young uses the term resource nationalism, which he will explain in detail in this interview.

Dr. Natalie Kimball analyzes the politics of abortion and reproductive rights in Bolivia from the mid-twentieth century to the present. They focus on the cities of La Paz and El Alto, exploring this open secret that brings to light the complex relationship of Bolivian nationalist, military, neoliberal, and leftist governments with women’s reproductive rights.