History : Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies)

One of the most popular and enduring legacies of President Lyndon B. Johnson's Great Society programs, Project Head Start continues to support young children of low-income families-close to one million annually-by providing a range of developmental and educational services. Yet as Head Start reaches its fortieth anniversary, debates over the function and scope of this federal program persist. Although the program's importance is unquestioned across party lines, the direction of its future—whether toward a greater focus on school readiness and literacy or the continuation of a holistic approach-remains a point of contention.Policymakers proposing to reform Head Start often invoke its origins to justify their position, but until now no comprehensive political history of the program has existed. Maris A. Vinovskis here provides an in-depth look at the nation's largest and best known—yet politically challenged—early education program. The Birth of Head Start sets the record straight on the program's intended aims, documenting key decisions made during its formative years. While previous accounts of Head Start have neglected the contributions of important participants such as federal education officials and members of Congress, Vinovskis's history is the first to consider the relationship between politics and policymaking and how this interaction has shaped the program. This thorough and incisive book will be essential for policymakers and legislators interested in prekindergarten education and will inform future discussions on early intervention services for disadvantaged children. more...

Price: $20.00

Examines the little known province of Mizque and its colonial populations from 1550 to 1782. This work also analyzes how imperial control met with resistance and how Africans, Indians, and Spaniards, and their descendants interacted with one another. It uncovers an intersection and cross-fertilization of sociocultural measurements. more...

Price: $45.00

By considering Bourbon Peru in a chronological framework which begins at mid-century rather than 1700, this book focuses the reader’s attention on the key issue of the relationship between colonial reform in the late eighteenth century and the creation of an independent Peruvian state in the 1820s. Fisher sets out some uncluttered responses to this question, emphasising continuities between the two forms of regime rather than change. The author’s arguments are underpinned by a comprehensive review of the major elements of Peru’s economic, social and political development for the half century from 1750. The study concludes with a detailed analysis of the independence period (1810–1824) which unlike many previous studies, provides a detailed interpretation of unrest in the highlands of royalist Peru, the dying days of the viceroyalty under Jose de la Serna (1821–1824) in Cusco, and the attempts to reach a negotiated settlement with the patriots under Jose de San Martin. Bourbon Peru is accessible, readable and well argued, and it will be essential reading for anyone with questions about the economy, government, social structure and political outlooks of Peru in the period prior to its independence. more...

Price: $30.00

Multidisciplinary encyclopedia of the impacts of the close ties between Britain and the whole of the Americas, examining Britain's cultural and political legacy to the nations of the New World, and how the Americas have in turn influenced contemporary Britain. more...

Price: $340.00

Broken Treaties is a comparative assessment of Indian treaty negotiation and implementation focusing on the first decade following the United States–Lakota Treaty of 1868 and Treaty Six between Canada and the Plains Cree (1876). Jill St. Germain argues that the “broken treaties” label imposed by nineteenth-century observers and perpetuated in the historical literature has obscured the implementation experience of both Native and non-Native participants and distorted our understanding of the relationships between them. As a result, historians have ignored the role of the Treaty of 1868 as the instrument through which the United States and the Lakotas mediated the cultural divide separating them in the period between 1868 and 1875. In discounting the treaty historians have also failed to appreciate the broader context of U.S. politics, which undermined a treaty solution to the Black Hills crisis in 1876. In Canada, on the other hand, the “broken treaties” tradition has obscured the distinctly different understanding of Treaty Six held by Canada and the Plains Cree. The inability of either party to appreciate the other’s position fostered the damaging misunderstanding that culminated in the Northwest Rebellion of 1885. In the first critical assessment of the implementation of these treaties, Broken Treaties restores Indian treaties to a central position in the investigation of Native–non-Native relations in the United States and Canada. more...

Price: $60.00