New Books Network

About Rachel Newman

Rachel Grace Newman is Lecturer in the History of the Global South at Smith College. She has a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University, and she writes about elite migration, education, transnationalism, and youth in twentieth-century Mexico. She is on Twitter (@rachelgnew).

NBN Episodes hosted by Rachel:

Latin American Studies October 26, 2021

La Güera Rodrígue

The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine

Silvia Marina Arrom

Hosted by Rachel Newman
In La Guera Rodriguez: The Life and Legends of a Mexican Independence Heroine (U California Press, 2021), Silvia Marina Arrom traces the legends of María Ignacia Rodríguez de Velasco y …
Latin American Studies October 15, 2021

Silver Veins, Dusty Lungs

Mining, Water, and Public Health in Zacatecas, 1835-1946

Rocio Gomez

Hosted by Rachel Newman
In Mexico environmental struggles have been fought since the nineteenth century in such places as Zacatecas, where United States and European mining interests have come into open conflict with rural …
Latin American Studies August 3, 2021

Dancing with the Revolution

Power, Politics, and Privilege in Cuba

Elizabeth B. Schwall

Hosted by Rachel Newman
In Dancing with the Revolution: Power, Politics, and Privilege in Cuba (UNC Press, 2021), Elizabeth B. Schwall aligns culture and politics by focusing on an art form that became a darling of …
Latin American Studies February 11, 2021

Revolution in Development

Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy

Christy Thornton

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Revolution in Development: Mexico and the Governance of the Global Economy (University of California Press, 2021) uncovers the surprising influence of post-revolutionary Mexico on the twentieth century's most important international economic institutions. Drawing …
Latin American Studies January 4, 2021

Taxing Blackness

Free Afromexican Tribute in Bourbon New Spain

Norah L. A. Gharala

Hosted by Rachel Newman
During the eighteenth century, hundreds of thousands of free descendants of Africans in Mexico faced a highly specific obligation to the Spanish crown, a tax based on their genealogy and …
Latin American Studies September 8, 2020

Mafalda

A Social And Political History of a Global Comic

Isabella Cosse

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Isabella Cosse’s Mafalda: A Social And Political History of a Global Comic (Duke University Press) is the definitive account of the most famous comic from Latin America, the Argentine strip …
Latin American Studies September 8, 2020

In the Vortex of Violence

Lynching, Extralegal Justice, and the State in Post-Revolutionary Mexico

Gema Kloppe-Santamaría

Hosted by Rachel Newman
In her new book In the In the Vortex of Violence: Lynching, Extralegal Justice, and the State in Post-Revolutionary Mexico (University of California Press), Gema Kloppe-Santamaría examines the history of …
Latin American Studies July 3, 2020

Students of Revolution

Youth, Protest, and Coalition-Building in Somoza-Era Nicaragua

Claudia Rueda

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Claudia Rueda’s book Students of Revolution: Youth, Protest, and Coalition-Building in Somoza-Era Nicaragua (University of Texas Press, 2019) is a history of student organizing against dictatorship in twentieth-century Nicaragua. By …
Latin American Studies June 3, 2020

Beatriz Allende

A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America

Tanya Harmer

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Tanya Harmer’s new biography, Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America (University of North Carolina Press, 2020), explores how a young Chilean woman pursued her political commitments …
Latin American Studies April 24, 2020

I Never Left Home

Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary

Margaret Randall

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Margaret Randall’s new memoir, I Never Left Home: Poet, Feminist, Revolutionary was published by Duke University Press in March 2020. Randall, born in New York City in 1936, lived in …
Latin American Studies January 22, 2020

No Barrier Can Contain It

Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War

Ariel Mae Lambe

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Ariel Mae Lambe’s new book No Barrier Can Contain It: Cuban Antifascism and the Spanish Civil War (University of North Carolina Press, 2019) is a history of transnational Cuban activists …
Latin American Studies December 4, 2019

Creating Charismatic Bonds in Argentina

Letters to Juan and Eva Perón

Donna Guy

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Donna Guy’s 2016 book Creating Charismatic Bonds in Argentina: Letters to Juan and Eva Perón (University of New Mexico Press) is a history of Peronist populism that puts everyday people …
Latin American Studies October 28, 2019

Making an Urban Public

Popular Claims to the City in Mexico, 1879-1932

Christina Jiménez

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Making an Urban Public: Popular Claims to the City in Mexico, 1879-1932 (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019) by Christina Jiménez is a social history of the city of Morelia, located …
Latin American Studies October 16, 2019

Seen and Heard in Mexico

Children and Revolutionary Cultural Nationalism

Elena Jackson Albarrán

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Elena Jackson Albarrán’s book Seen and Heard in Mexico: Children and Revolutionary Cultural Nationalism (University of Nebraska Press, 2014) explores the changing politics of childhood during the period 1920-1940, in …
Latin American Studies July 25, 2019

From the Grounds Up

Building an Export Economy in Southern Mexico

Casey Lurtz

Hosted by Rachel Newman
In From the Grounds Up: Building an Export Economy in Southern Mexico (Stanford University Press, 2019), Casey Lurtz explains how the fertile yet isolated region of the Soconusco became integrated …
Latin American Studies June 27, 2019

Beyond Alterity

Destabilizing the Indigenous Other in Mexico

Paula López Caballero and Ariadna Acevedo-Rodrigo

Hosted by Rachel Newman
What happens when scholars approach the category of “indigenous” without presupposing its otherness? Edited by Paula López Caballero and Ariadna Acevedo-Rodrigo, Beyond Alterity: Destabilizing the Indigenous Other in Mexico (University …
Latin American Studies June 11, 2019

Paternity

The Elusive Quest for the Father

Nara Milanich

Hosted by Rachel Newman
Nara Milanich’s Paternity: The Elusive Quest for the Father (Harvard University Press, 2019) explains how fatherhood, long believed to be impossible to know with certainty, became a biological “fact” that …
Latin American Studies May 23, 2019

Street Democracy

Vendors, Violence, and Public Space in Late Twentieth-Century Mexico

Sandra Mendiola García

Hosted by Rachel Newman
In Street Democracy: Vendors, Violence, and Public Space in Late Twentieth-Century Mexico (University of Nebraska Press, 2017), Sandra C. Mendiola García analyzes independent union activism among street vendors facing state …