Accessibly written and very beautifully by Caldecott Honor Winner Ted Lewin, Lost City: The Discovery Of Machu Picchu is a picturebook history presentation about a 1911 journey into Peru in search of Vilcapampa, the lost city of the Incas. What was actually discovered was the forgotten city of Machu Picchu, resulting in an extraordinary testimony to archaeological history and a Native American legacy, in this wonderfully illustrated, deftly told, and strongly recommended story.

"Secrets of El Dorado," includes a brilliant narrative by German Arciniegas along with a large collection of breathtaking photographs by Juan Mayr. In my opinion, this book must be included in anyone's library of books on Colombia. The quality of this large text is outstanding and the historical information of the importance of gold in Colombia is impeccably researched. Moreover, the introduction by President Virgilio Barco is a wonderful testimony to Colombia's special culture. This book is the next best thing to a ticket to Colombia's dynamic Gold Museam in Bogotá. Although expensive..."Secrets of El Dorado," is a great investment and much more than a mere coffee table ornament.

In our days, there is a continue interest on security field, whatever it could include or we understand by security. In other words, the essential core is to mantain confidence in the region, specifically, Latin America, of which world has pointed out their real interests.

In order to keep the peace in the region, the importance of this book is to select the principles of the international relationships. The past agreement signed between Peru and Ecuador definitely point out the seriuos level of confidence that those countries have reached.

Finally, the author is a known latin american researcher, so that, it could contribute to explain the narrow military and civil relationship that have worked together to end the territorial conflict.

this book gives a remarkable crosssection of the alternatives for fine art that photography holds. excellent examples from straight documentary photography to mixed media collages incorperating found photographs. the book is also put together in a remarkable manner with each well written essay first written in spanish and then in english. essays are informative as introductions to the artist being reviewed and to their ideas and the culture that helped form the. the introduction of the book sort of traced the history and progression of photography as an art in mexico and any one interested in photography or culture should find it fascinating.

"Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980 - 1995," by Editor Steve J. Stern is a collection of essays that vividly documents a revolution that only brought suffering and death. This five-part book traces the roots of the Shining Path from its heady beginning to the conquest that failed.

Part One is dry. However, Part Two & Three generate much more interest. I found Ponciano del Pino, Nelson Manrique, Orin Starr, Jo-Marie Burt and Patricia Oliart the best of the bunch. They crystallized the subject...bringing it to life and provided stimulating insights.

Shining Path started in rural Ayacucho in the late 1970's and eventually made its way into the urban centers, particularly Villa El Salvador outside of Lima nearly ten years later. Initially Shining Path was ethical and moral. The Founding Father of the movement Professor Abimael Guzman instructed his Indian followers to punish adultery, alcoholism, vagrancy, robbery and cattle rustling. Moreover, the young flocked to the revolutionary rhetoric of a "people's war."

Early on the Shining Path maintained good ties with the peasants in the countryside. However, this did not last for long because in 1983 - 1984 the armed forces implemented a brutal "dirty war" that forced the guerrillas away from traditional regions of support and into new territory where they too used fear and intimidation tactics against the local peasant population.

Eventually, the Shining Path went out of control...conducting terrible massacres against unarmed civilians and forcing children into its ranks. The tide turned against the Shining Path with the 1990 election of President Alberto Fujimori. The new president accelerated the organization of self-defense groups among the unprotected peasant population with the distribution of shotguns, rifles and handguns.

The unfortunate part of the Shining Path revolution was that the poor were trapped in violence from both sides. However, the true downfall of the Shining Path is that at the end they were nothing but ruthless terrorists who preyed on the poor.

Bert Ruiz

This book collects the thoughts of Peruvians and Peruvianists on the terrible decade of the 1980s - the most thorough and nuanced account of Sendero Luminoso I have read, with attention to many events in a variety of regions of the country. The reader really walks away with a sense of what this period was like for the people who lived through it.

Palmer's "The Shining Path of Peru", which is actually a collection of essays by noted Latin American scholars, offers perhaps the most comprehensive study of the Shining Path that I've read. The topics range from historical perspectives of the group to speculations about its future. The book provides an excellent, extremely in-depth look at Shining Path and holds a wealth of information for the political and/or terrorism student or enthusiast.

Gorriti's account of how Abimael Guzman and his astoundingly savage cohort found enough followers to convulse Peru for a decade is detailed and authoritative. It is also wonderfully free of the dense prose and meandering sentences which plague so much serious writing on Latin America. This book is indispensable for anyone attempting to understand how savage Maoism found purchase in the Andes.

Don't be fooled by the sensationalist title, this is no right wing polemic about the horrors of communism. This is a balanced and essentially apolitical examination of the Shining Path revolutionary movement. It shows how corrupt and violent Peruvian society was (is?) at every level. It's a short book and an easy read, but extremely valuable in terms of gaining an understanding of the historical and socio-economic conditions that made a revolutionary force like the Shining Path not only possible, but inevitable. The author has no discernable political bias other than an obvious sympathy for the Amerindian peasants who were the victims of ALL the power brokers: the government, the rebels, the Catholic Church, Protestant missionaries, the cocaine trafficers and the DEA. Strong makes no apologies for the Shining Path and clearly shows how ruthless and coercive they were, but it also provides insight as to how and why the rebels gained such a wide level of popular support. What I found most interesting was how closely Maoist doctrine mirrored the indigenous culture and how the rebels co-opted the peasant mythology in order to advocate for their revolution.

Ultimately disturbing - there are no heroes here - this is a book that fosters understanding, although it offers no solutions.

I read this book in 7th grade. If you like biographies you will love this one.This man was a brave man who led many revolutions.He was born in 1783 in Caracas,Venezuela on July 24.He declared independence for Venezuela in 1811.He died near Santa Marta in 1830.

Armed African Americans have defended the Americas since the beginning of America. They helped to build the military forces in almost all the countries of the New World just as African Americans helped build the infrastructures and cultures in this hemisphere. Their positive military contributions have generally been ignored or downplayed just as minority forms of resistance have been generally overplayed by both historians and the popular culture.

In war most blacks have reacted with motives as complex as those of the whites, Indians and Europeans who led them or fought alongside or against them. This book explores the impact of blacks on war and war on blacks, who served in every kind of military unit and engagement, displaying loyalty, courage and skill often superior to that of white troops. Slave soldiers were often treated equally and honorably in much of the Americas long before the U.S. got around to employing them in the military or integrating them in units. The social, political and psychological effects of arming slaves gave freedom and social mobility to many, breaking down barriers of class, caste, race and color and fostering equality and emancipation in most colonies. Instead of turning their weapons on their masters or the slave system, as some modern ideologues would wish us to believe, the armed slaves nobly and effectively fought for their colonies and homes, demonstrating their human qualities before color, race or African origin. The military turned out to be perhaps the most liberating and egalitarian institution in racial terms, as it still is generally. Liberation through loyal arms stands sentimental ideologies on their head, but the historical evidence speaks for itself. The history of the black soldier is compelling and controversial, but it can help both our understanding of race relations in the past and our commitment to heal the present.