Author: Alpheus Hyatt VerrillPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Panama
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
Panama, Past and Present
Author: Alpheus Hyatt VerrillPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Panama
Languages : en
Pages : 328
Book Description
The Panama Railroad
Author: Peter PynePublisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253052092
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 380
Book Description
In 1848, a group of ambitious American entrepreneurs decided to embark upon a remarkable engineering feat—they would build a railroad across the Isthmus of Panama to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The creation of the Panama Railroad ranks as one the boldest capitalist ventures in the 19th century, and would require battling climate, disease, and geography before it was completed. On a human level, it would transform the destiny of thousands of lives in America, Panama, the West Indies, and Asia, as well as in Ireland. The Panama Railroad provides the first comprehensive account of the railroad's construction, going well beyond the known stories of the titans of industry involved with its construction, such as William Aspinwall, George Law, and Cornelius Vanderbilt. It seeks to correct false claims and address numerous gaps in past histories, and in particular showcases the stories of the ordinary Irish workers willing to travel halfway around the globe to pursue an uncertain future and a perilous undertaking in the hopes of escaping the devastating aftermath of the Great Famine of 1845–49.
Panamanian Museums and Historical Memory
Author: Ana Luisa Sánchez LawsPublisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 0857452401
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 145
Book Description
Panama is an ethnically diverse country with a recent history of political conflict which makes the representation of historical memory an especially complex and important task for the country’s museums. This book studies new museum projects in Panama with the aim of identifying the dominant narratives that are being formed as well as those voices that remain absent and muted. Through case analyses of specific museums and exhibitions the author identifies and examines the influences that form and shape museum strategy and development.
When the Devil Knocks
Author: Renée Alexander CraftPublisher: Black Performance and Cultural
ISBN: 9780814212707
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 240
Book Description
Despite its long history of encounters with colonialism, slavery, and neocolonialism, Panama continues to be an under-researched site of African Diaspora identity, culture, and performance. To address this void, Renée Alexander Craft examines an Afro-Latin Carnival performance tradition called "Congo" as it is enacted in the town of Portobelo, Panama--the nexus of trade in the Spanish colonial world. In When the Devil Knocks: The Congo Tradition and the Politics of Blackness in Twentieth-Century Panama, Alexander Craft draws on over a decade of critical ethnographic research to argue that Congo traditions tell the story of cimarronaje, charting self-liberated Africans' triumph over enslavement, their parody of the Spanish Crown and Catholic Church, their central values of communalism and self-determination, and their hard-won victories toward national inclusion and belonging. When the Devil Knocks analyzes the Congo tradition as a dynamic cultural, ritual, and identity performance that tells an important story about a Black cultural past while continuing to create itself in a Black cultural present. This book examines "Congo" within the history of twentieth century Panamanian etnia negra culture, politics, and representation, including its circulation within the political economy of contemporary tourism.
Modern Panama
Author: Michael L. ConniffPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110847666X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 367
Book Description
Provides a comprehensive overview of the political and economic developments in Panama from 1980 to the present day.
Panama 1989–90
Author: Gordon L. RottmanPublisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 178200453X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 163
Book Description
In December 1989 US Army forces, supported by the US Air Force and US Navy, participated in Operation 'Just Cause'--the invasion of Panama. A combination of airborne, helicopter and ground assaults quickly secured key objectives and eliminated organized resistance. Beginning with a brief history of US-Panama relations and the development of the Panamanian Defense Forces, this book focuses principally on the military aspects of Operation 'Just Cause', and ends with a summary of the conflict's aftermath. Numerous photographs, and detailed color plates depict the actions of the armed forces units that executed this difficult, and controversial, operation.
Erased
Author: Marixa LassoPublisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674984447
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353
Book Description
The Panama Canal's untold history—from the Panamanian point of view. Sleuth and scholar Marixa Lasso recounts how the canal’s American builders displaced 40,000 residents and erased entire towns in the guise of bringing modernity to the tropics. The Panama Canal set a new course for the modern development of Central America. Cutting a convenient path from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans, it hastened the currents of trade and migration that were already reshaping the Western hemisphere. Yet the waterway was built at considerable cost to a way of life that had characterized the region for centuries. In Erased, Marixa Lasso recovers the history of the Panamanian cities and towns that once formed the backbone of the republic. Drawing on vast and previously untapped archival sources and personal recollections, Lasso describes the canal’s displacement of peasants, homeowners, and shop owners, and chronicles the destruction of a centuries-old commercial culture and environment. On completion of the canal, the United States engineered a tropical idyll to replace the lost cities and towns—a space miraculously cleansed of poverty, unemployment, and people—which served as a convenient backdrop to the manicured suburbs built exclusively for Americans. By restoring the sounds, sights, and stories of a world wiped clean by U.S. commerce and political ambition, Lasso compellingly pushes back against a triumphalist narrative that erases the contribution of Latin America to its own history.
Panama Money in Barbados, 1900-1920
Author: Bonham C. RichardsonPublisher: Univ. of Tennessee Press
ISBN: 9781572333062
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 312
Book Description
The Big Ditch
Author: Noel MaurerPublisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691248079
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 440
Book Description
An incisive economic and political history of the Panama Canal On August 15, 1914, the Panama Canal officially opened for business, forever changing the face of global trade and military power, as well as the role of the United States on the world stage. The Canal's creation is often seen as an example of U.S. triumphalism, but Noel Maurer and Carlos Yu reveal a more complex story. Examining the Canal's influence on Panama, the United States, and the world, The Big Ditch deftly chronicles the economic and political history of the Canal, from Spain's earliest proposals in 1529 through the final handover of the Canal to Panama on December 31, 1999, to the present day. The authors show that the Canal produced great economic dividends for the first quarter-century following its opening, despite massive cost overruns and delays. Relying on geographical advantage and military might, the United States captured most of these benefits. By the 1970s, however, when the Carter administration negotiated the eventual turnover of the Canal back to Panama, the strategic and economic value of the Canal had disappeared. And yet, contrary to skeptics who believed it was impossible for a fledgling nation plagued by corruption to manage the Canal, when the Panamanians finally had control, they switched the Canal from a public utility to a for-profit corporation, ultimately running it better than their northern patrons. A remarkable tale, The Big Ditch offers vital lessons about the impact of large-scale infrastructure projects, American overseas interventions on institutional development, and the ability of governments to run companies effectively.
Esperanza Speaks
Author: Gloria RudolfPublisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 1487594712
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223
Book Description
Esperanza Speaks examines a century-long process of socioeconomic change in rural Panama through the experiences of one woman, Esperanza Ruiz, and four generations of her family. The intimate narrative shows how ordinary people, through their choices and actions, are affected by and, in turn, can affect how history unfolds. Readers see Esperanza’s family as both victims and protagonists in their own histories. Born into rural poverty with limited options, they still find small openings to try to improve their lives. Sometimes successful, sometimes not, they survive by drawing on their only abundant resource: each other. Based on twenty field visits over the course of fifty years, Esperanza Speaks is the result of a dedicated anthropologist’s long-term engagement with the individuals of a single community, and a beautiful example of ethnographic storytelling.