In The Prestes Column, Jacob Blanc offers a new interpretation of the legendary rebellion, in which a band of rebel officers and soldiers marched 15,000 miles through the vast interior regions of Brazil between 1924 and 1927. Blanc’s analysis of the Prestes Column is a showcase of what he calls “interior history.” At a pivotal moment in national politics, the long march of the column came to embody the constructed duality of Brazil’s interior: a space that was seen by coastal elites as simultaneously backwards—in relation to the more modern coast—and dormant, an expanse of untapped potential waiting to be brought into the nation. Drawing on a range of materials, from officers’ memoirs and local eye-witness accounts to physical memorials and government archives, Blanc’s framework of interior history helps explain the column’s initial rise to fame and also its enduring legacy across the twentieth century, offering a new approach for the study of space and nation.

In Before the Flood Jacob Blanc traces the protest movements of rural Brazilians living in the shadow of the Itaipu dam-the largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, local communities facing displacement took a stand against the military officials overseeing the dam's construction, and in the context of an emerging national fight for democracy, they elevated their struggle for land into a referendum on the dictatorship itself. Unlike the broader campaign against military rule, however, the conflict at Itaipu was premised on issues that long predated the official start of dictatorship: access to land, the defense of rural and indigenous livelihoods, and political rights in the countryside. In their efforts against Itaipu and through conflicts among themselves, title-owning farmers, landless peasants, and the Ava-Guarani Indians articulated a rural-based vision for democracy. Through interviews and archival research-including declassified military documents and the first-ever access to the Itaipu Binational Corporation-Before the Flood challenges the primacy of urban-focused narratives and unearths the rural experiences of dictatorship and democracy in Brazil.

In The Prestes Column, Jacob Blanc offers a new interpretation of the legendary rebellion, in which a band of rebel officers and soldiers marched 15,000 miles through the vast interior regions of Brazil between 1924 and 1927. Blanc’s analysis of the Prestes Column is a showcase of what he calls “interior history.” At a pivotal moment in national politics, the long march of the column came to embody the constructed duality of Brazil’s interior: a space that was seen by coastal elites as simultaneously backwards—in relation to the more modern coast—and dormant, an expanse of untapped potential waiting to be brought into the nation. Drawing on a range of materials, from officers’ memoirs and local eye-witness accounts to physical memorials and government archives, Blanc’s framework of interior history helps explain the column’s initial rise to fame and also its enduring legacy across the twentieth century, offering a new approach for the study of space and nation.

Transnational Communism across the Americas offers an innovative approach to the study of Latin American communism. It convincingly illustrates that communist parties were both deeply rooted in their own local realities and maintained significant relationships with other communists across the region and around the world. The essays in this collection use a transnational lens to examine the relationships of the region's communist parties with each other, their international counterparts, and non-communist groups dedicated to anti-imperialism, women's rights, and other causes. Topics include the shifting relationship between Mexican communists and the Comintern, Black migrant workers in the Caribbean, race relations in Cuba, Latin American communists in the USSR, Luis Carlos Prestes in Brazil, the US and Puerto Rican communist and nationalist parties, peace activist networks in Latin America, communist women in Guatemala, transnational student groups, and guerrillas in El Salvador. Insightful and expert, Transnational Communism across the Americas illuminates the various Latin American communist parties and their milieus, programs, and policies. Contributors: Marc Becker, Jacob Blanc, Tanya Harmer, Patricia Harms, Lazar Jeifets, Victor Jeifets, Adriana Petra, Margaret M. Power, Frances Peace Sullivan, Tony Wood, Kevin A. Young, and Jacob Zumoff

In Before the Flood Jacob Blanc traces the protest movements of rural Brazilians living in the shadow of the Itaipu dam-the largest producer of hydroelectric power in the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, local communities facing displacement took a stand against the military officials overseeing the dam's construction, and in the context of an emerging national fight for democracy, they elevated their struggle for land into a referendum on the dictatorship itself. Unlike the broader campaign against military rule, however, the conflict at Itaipu was premised on issues that long predated the official start of dictatorship: access to land, the defense of rural and indigenous livelihoods, and political rights in the countryside. In their efforts against Itaipu and through conflicts among themselves, title-owning farmers, landless peasants, and the Ava-Guarani Indians articulated a rural-based vision for democracy. Through interviews and archival research-including declassified military documents and the first-ever access to the Itaipu Binational Corporation-Before the Flood challenges the primacy of urban-focused narratives and unearths the rural experiences of dictatorship and democracy in Brazil.

Transnational Communism across the Americas offers an innovative approach to the study of Latin American communism. It convincingly illustrates that communist parties were both deeply rooted in their own local realities and maintained significant relationships with other communists across the region and around the world. The essays in this collection use a transnational lens to examine the relationships of the region's communist parties with each other, their international counterparts, and non-communist groups dedicated to anti-imperialism, women's rights, and other causes. Topics include the shifting relationship between Mexican communists and the Comintern, Black migrant workers in the Caribbean, race relations in Cuba, Latin American communists in the USSR, Luis Carlos Prestes in Brazil, the US and Puerto Rican communist and nationalist parties, peace activist networks in Latin America, communist women in Guatemala, transnational student groups, and guerrillas in El Salvador. Insightful and expert, Transnational Communism across the Americas illuminates the various Latin American communist parties and their milieus, programs, and policies. Contributors: Marc Becker, Jacob Blanc, Tanya Harmer, Patricia Harms, Lazar Jeifets, Victor Jeifets, Adriana Petra, Margaret M. Power, Frances Peace Sullivan, Tony Wood, Kevin A. Young, and Jacob Zumoff

Big Water explores four centuries of the overlapping histories of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay (the Triple Frontier), and the colonies that preceded them. Examining an important area that includes some of the first national parks established in Latin America and one of the world's largest hydroelectric dams, this transnational approach illustrates how three nation-states have interacted over time. From the Jesuit reductions in the seventeenth century to the flows of capital and goods accelerated by contemporary trade agreements, the Triple Frontier region has proven fundamental to the development of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay as well as to the Southern Cone and South America itself. Although historians from each of these three countries have tended to construct narratives that stop at their respective borders, the contributors call for a reinterpretation that goes beyond the material and conceptual boundaries of the Triple Frontier. In offering a transnational approach, Big Water helps transcend nation-centered blind spots and approach new understanding of how space and society have developed throughout Latin America. The essays achieve the goals of complicating traditional frontier histories and also balancing the excessive weight previously given to empires, nations, and territorial expansion. Overcoming stagnant comparisons between national cases, the research explores regional identity beyond border and geopolitical divides. In so doing, Big Water focuses on the uniquely overlapping character of the Triple Frontier and emphasizes a perspective usually left at the periphery of national histories. Contributors: Shawn Michael Austin, Jacob Blanc, Bridget Maria Chesterton, Christine Folch, Zephyr Frank, Frederico Freitas, Michael Kenneth Huner, Evaldo Mendes da Silva, Eunice Nodari, Graciela Silvestri, Guillermo Wilde, Daryle Williams.