Brazil: War on Children by Gilberto Dimenstein, Latin America Bureau, 1991, 88 pp., $10.00 (paper). Brazil's street children inhabit a world of drugs, petty crime, prostitu- tion, and vigilante-style death squads. Brazilianjournalist Gilberto Dimenstein enters that world, interviewing the Church and non-governmental groups that work with the homeless, the au- thorities who turn a blind eye, the kill- ers, and the children themselves. Guatemalan Indians and the State: 1540 to 1988 by Carol A. Smith (ed.), University of Texas Press, 1990, 316 pp., $27.50 (cloth). The history of Guatemala is, in many ways, the history of the efforts of the country's indigenous majority to main- tain cultural traditions in the face of state repression. In this scholarly an- thology, noted historians and anthro- pologists provide a long-overdue ex- amination of the "ethnic question." The Bird Who Cleans the World and Other Mayan Fables by Victor Montejo, Curbstone Press, 1991, 120 pp., $22.95 (cloth). In this entertaining collection of Maya folk tales, Victor Montejo has rescued from his Guatemalan child- hood an oral tradition of wisdom handed down through families for generations. Allegorical stories of the rabbit, the jaguar and the monkey teach the values of patience, cunning, honest labor, and faithfulness. These fables offer impor- tant lessons, such as "who cuts the trees cuts his own life," that modernity ig- nores at its own peril. Maya Society under Colonial Rule: The Collective Enterprise of Survival by Nancy M. Farriss, Princeton Univer- sity Press, 1984, 585 pp., $21.95 (pa- per). While most studies of indigenous peoples in the early modern period tend to focus on their initial demographic collapse, Farriss emphasizes their pre- carious survival. Blending archival re- search in Mexico and Spain with the results of anthropological fieldwork in the Yucatan, Farriss turns to Maya kin- ship systems to explain the persistence of Maya cultural knowledge and cos- mological beliefs in the face of Christi- anity, the hacienda economy and direct political incorporation during the late eighteenth century. Storm Signals: Structural Adjust- ment and Development Alternatives in the Caribbean Basin by Kathy McAfee, Zed Books/Oxfam America, 1991, 259 pp., $15.00 (paper). The Caribbean Basin in the 1980s was a testing ground for aid and trade policies that are now standard fare for the Third World. This book gives a detailed look at the effects of Reaganomics in the Caribbean (case studies include Jamaica, Grenada and Dominica), and, most importantly, how grassroots groups are constructing their own viable strategies for development. Conditions Not of Their Choosing: The Guaymi Indians and Mining Multinationals in Panama by Chris N. Gjording, Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991, 409 pp., $42.50 (cloth). In the 1970s, three multinational corporations made plans, later aban- doned, to construct a mammoth copper mine in western Panama, on lands in- habited by the Guaymi Indians. Condi- tions Not of Their Choosing is a case study of Indian resistance, detailing the power relations among the various groups who supported or opposed the project: the corporate directors and gov- ernment officials, the Catholic Church, non-Indian workers and the Guaymi. People of the Pines: The Warriors and the Legacy of Oka by Geoffrey York and Loreen Pindera, Little, Brown & Co. (Canada), 1991,438 pp., $29.95 (cloth). The 1990 Mohawk armed standoff with the Quebec police and the Cana- dian army is captured here in all its drama and political import. Reporters York and Pindera (Globe & Mail and CBC Radio respectively) uncover the inner workings of the Canadian high military and political command while providing a thorough history of Mohawk struggle. The book excels in its blow- by-blow reconstruction of events from interviews with participants.
