The editorial office has received a number of textbooks and syntheses of scholarly literature that will be of interest to our readership, especially for teaching purposes. To introduce these works, we occasionally list in this section the publication information and tables of contents entries. The five volumes selected for this issue examine Brazil, economic history, dictatorship, Central America, and modern Latin American history.

The editorial office has received a number of edited volumes of articles that will be of interest to our readership. These works tend to be less suitable for unified reviews than monographs, and thus a considerable backlog has developed. To introduce these volumes, we occasionally list in this section the publication information and tables of contents entries for those we have received. The five volumes selected for this issue focus on politics and economics, with emphases on neoliberalism and the Cuban economy.

Professor J. Lorand Matory's thorough critique of the English translation of my book, which was first published in Brazil in 2006, did not come to me as a complete surprise. He and I have known each other for some years, and we have shared with each other interests in the cultural history of Candomblé, in particular the place and role of the Jeje nation. We have discussed our interpretative divergences in private and in public, and I have referred to some of them in writing (Nagôization, 2005; Birth, 2005; Formation). I do appreciate and feel honored that such a distinguished scholar has devoted some of his precious time to reviewing my book, giving me the chance to revisit my over-a-decade-old argument in the light of his provoking challenges. Yet, after reading his essay (certainly more than a standard review), I wondered why he had taken the effort to write 15 single-spaced pages of meticulous criticism on a work he ultimately dismisses as theoretically old-fashioned and full of errors and inconsistencies. If it is so worthless, why care about it in the first place?

The editorial office has received a number of edited volumes that will be of interest to our readership. To introduce these works, we occasionally list in this section the publication information and tables of contents entries. The five volumes selected for this issue examine the Great Depression in Latin America, immigration and national identities, Latin American foreign policies, Latin American politics and development, and civic life and culture in Cuba's First Republic.

Between July 23 and July 25, 2014, the University of Montevideo hosted the Fourth Jornadas Internacionales de Historia del Paraguay, with sponsorship from the Universities of Georgia, Köln, and Rennes 2. Organized by Thomas Whigham and Juan Manuel Casal, the conference included 45 presenters and 70 attendees traveling to the Uruguayan capital from the United States, Germany, Spain, Italy, Paraguay, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay. Students from both the National and Catholic Universities of Asunción also took part with one of their number, Claudio José Fuentes Armadans (Universidad Católica), providing an interesting presentation on the history of the Liberal Party. First-time contributors to the conference included Carlos Gómez Florentín (SUNY Stony Brook), who discussed the environmental history of the hydroelectric complex at Itaipú, and Justin Michael Heath (University of Texas, Austin), who traced the evolution of frontier security in the early Jesuit missions. The Jornadas also benefited from repeat contributors, including Ignacio Telesca (Universidad Nacional de Formosa/CONICET), who analyzed the historical content of Paraguayan textbooks in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and Bridget María Chesterton, who discussed how the “sweet herb” ka’a he’e (stevia) has affected markets and habits of consumption in more recent times.

As someone who assigns both Matory and Parés in my graduate courses, I find myself asking what is at stake in this debate. If we take Matory at face value, Parés is an unreformed “Herskovitsian” who searches for linear connections between vodun religion in West Africa and the Jeje Candomblé in Bahia. According to Matory, Parés's emphasis on primordial Africa is based on a quest “to avenge the honor of the Jeje nation.” But avenge it from what? Against whom? As both authors make clear, Nagô Candomblé houses transcended Jeje houses in power and prestige, starting in the late nineteenth century. Matory acknowledges the continuing influence of Jeje, especially through the dialogic exchanges of Jeje elites who traveled back and forth between Africa and Brazil in the 1890s. However, he firmly rejects Parés’ claim that memory of earlier Jeje structures shaped Candomblé as it evolved in the twentieth century.

The editorial office has received a number of edited volumes that will be of interest to our readership. To introduce these works, we occasionally list in this section the publication information and tables of contents entries. The six volumes selected for this issue examine populism, popular politics, and the left in Latin America, with an emphasis on recent work concerning Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.