Rockin' las Americas : the global politics of rock in Latin/o America /

To lay out the perimeter of the meaning and the breadth of this book, Hernanadez (anthropology, Tufts Univ.), L'Hoeste (Spanish, Georgia State Univ.), and Zolov (history, Franklin & Marshall College) define rock music as "a template within which a variety of sounds and behaviors can be located and still be understood as a coherent category." They organize the 17 chapters according to this definition, and each contributor delves into an aspect of how rock music is incorporated into the cultures of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Paraguay, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Uruguay. Besides the descriptive articles, a few others bring to the discussion thoughts on such matters as "neoliberalism," post-authoritarianism, and globalization. The opening chapter, "Mapping Rock Music Cultures across the Americas," and the last, "A Changeable Template of Rock in Las Americas," provide effective bookends for the project. The book concludes with a modest appendix--a flowchart of time lines of development of rock music in Spanish and Portuguese countries in Latin America--an extensive endnotes section, and a "selected" bibliography. (This reviewer does wonder who did the selecting and what criteria they used.) Though long-winded, this book is full of information. ^BSumming Up: Optional. Upper-division undergraduates and above. Kazadi wa Mukuna Kent State University