This second edition offers an unparallelled look at Brazil in the twentieth century, including in-depth coverage of the 1930 revolution and Vargas's rise to power; the ensuing unstable democratic period and the military coups that followed; and the reemergence of democracy in 1985. It concludes with the recent presidency of Luiz Inacio "Lula" da Silva, covering such economic successes as record-setting exports, dramatic foreign debt reduction, and improved income distribution. The second edition features numerous new images and a new bibliographic guide to recent works on Brazilian history for use by both instructors and students. Informed by the most recent scholarship available, Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, Second Edition, explores the country's many blessings--ethnic diversity, racial democracy, a vibrant cultural life, and a wealth of natural resources.

This book offers an innovative, thematic approach to the history of Latin America since independence. It traces continuity and change in colonial legacies that became central political issues following independence: authoritarian governance; a rigid social hierarchy based on race, color, and gender; the powerful Roman Catholic Church; economic dependency; and the large landed estate. Generally, liberals have sought to modify or abolish these legacies in the interest of what they consider progress, while conservatives have attempted to preserve them as much as possible as bastions of their power and privilege. Examining the evolution of these colonial legacies across two centuries reveals the processes that formed the political systems, economies, societies, and religious institutions that characterize Latin America today.

Twelve essays written by university-affiliated geographers, historians, anthropologists, and ecologists explore the local transformations of physical landforms, fish life, humans, and the Mississippi River that created and continue to modify the city of New Orleans. Among the topics: Native Americans and the geography of New Orleans; subduing nature through engineering; and industrial pollution in the lower Mississippi. c. Book News Inc.

Byzantium, that dark sphere on the periphery of medieval Europe, is commonly regarded as the immutable residue of Rome's decline. In this highly original and provocative work, Alexander Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein revise this traditional image by documenting the dynamic social changes that occurred during the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

Mokyr provides a long term perspective on the economic impact of technological change, surveying developments in production technologies between 500 BC and 1914.

Cities rather than individual pioneers have been the driving force in the settlement and economic development of the western half of North America. Throughout the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries, western urban centers served as starting points for conquest and settlement. As these frontier cities matured into metropolitan centers, they grew from imitators of eastern culture and outposts of eastern capital into independent sources of economic, cultural, and intellectual change. From the Gulf of Alaska to the Mississippi River and from the binational metropolis of San Diego-Tijuana to the Prairie Province capitals of Canada, Carl Abbott explores the complex urban history of western Canada and the United States. The evolution of western cities from stations for exploration and military occupation to contemporary entry points for migration and components of a global economy reminds us that it is cities that "won the West." And today, as cultural change increasingly moves from west to east, Abbott argues that the urban West represents a new center from which emerging patterns of behavior and changing customs will help to shape North America in the twenty-first century.

Children living in Great Britain and the United States at the beginning of each century between 1000 and 2000 A.D. describe their lifestyle at the time.

An award-winning author tells the stories of the audacious American politicians, military commanders, and business executives who took it upon themselves to depose monarchs, presidents, and prime ministers of other countries with disastrous long-term consequences.

We are an astonishing species. Over the past millennium of plagues and exploration, revolution and scientific discovery, woman’s rights and technological advances, human society has changed beyond recognition. Sweeping through the last thousand years of human development, Human Race is a treasure chest of the lunar leaps and lightbulb moments that, for better or worse, have sent humanity swerving down a path that no one could ever have predicted. But which of the last ten centuries saw the greatest changes in human history? History’s greatest tour guide, Ian Mortimer, knows what answer he would give. But what’s yours?