Grandin, Greg

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Grandin, Greg

PERSONAL:

Education: City University of New York: Brooklyn College, B.A., 1992; Yale University, Ph.D., 1999.

ADDRESSES:

Office—New York University, King Juan Carlos I of Spain Center, 53 Washington Sq. S., 611, NYU Mail Code 1771, New York, NY 10012; fax: 212-995-4017. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, historian, and educator. Duke University, Durham, NC, assistant professor of history; New York University, New York, NY, assistant professor, became professor of history and director of graduate studies in Latin American history.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Guggenheim fellowship, 2004; Bryce Wood Award for most outstanding book published in English in the humanities and social sciences on Latin America, Latin American Studies Association, for The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation.

WRITINGS:

The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation, Duke University Press (Durham, NC), 2000.

Denegado en su totalidad: documentos estaduonidenses liberados, AVANCSO (Guatemala City, Guatemala), 2001.

The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War, University of Chicago Press (Chicago, IL), 2004.

Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, Metropolitan Books (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to books, including Reclaiming the Political in Latin American History: Essays in Honor of Emilia-Viotti-da Costa, edited by Gilbert M. Joseph, Duke University Press (Durham, NC), 2001; and The Specter of Genocide: Mass Murder in Historical Perspective, edited by Robert Gellately and Ben Kiernan, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2003. Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, Mother Jones, Boston Review, American Historical Review, Hispanic American Historical Review, Anthropological Theory, Bulletin of Latin American Research, and the Nation.

SIDELIGHTS:

Author, educator, and historian Greg Grandin is a professor of history at New York University and an expert in Central and Latin American history. Grandin explained on the New York University Department of History Web site that his work "explores the connection between the diverse manifestations of everyday life and the large-scale societal transformation that took place in Central America related to agricultural commodity production and state formation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries." Grandin teaches classes on subjects such as terrorism and Latin America, Latinos and Latinas in America, comparative native American history, and Latin America and the cold war.

The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation "examines the astute ways in which the K'iche' elite in the city of Quetzaltenango maneuvered to preserve their position of prestige and power over the course of more than two centuries," noted Jean Muteba Rahier in the Latin American Research Review. In his "fascinating and ambitious narrative of the political, economic, social and demographic dimensions of Guatemala's history from the late colonial period to the counterrevolutionary coup of 1954," Grandin "offers a highly critical and innovative reinterpretation of the histories shaping the making of the country's nation- state, nationalism and cultural identities during the last two centuries," commented Gerardo Renique in the NACLA Report on the Americas. Grandin focuses on the struggles between the elite political groups and the other groups forming the area's middle class in creating a national state in Guatemala. He also explores how the K'iche' elites became a cadre of middlemen between the local, indigenous K'iche' population and the upper classes and the government, allowing the elite class to thrive and expand economically, perhaps at the expense of their commoner brethren. "Through his treatment of local politics and the changing relationship between K'iche' commoners and elites, the author also examines the intricacies of Indian identity, state formation and the emergence of contentious nationalist visions," Renique observed. Jennie Purnell, writing in the Journal of Latin American Studies, called Grandin's work a "rich and beautifully-written book" and "a very complex and elegant book that combines a compelling narrative with meticulous scholarship." Steve C. Ropp, writing in Perspectives on Political Science, remarked: "This is an excellent book for those who wish to understand the complexities of Guatemala's historical transition from a remote Spanish colony populated largely by indigenous Mayan people to a racially and ethnically mixed sovereign nation-state."

In Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, Grandin traces the origins of U.S. imperial intentions and military interventionism in Latin America, which he sees as having long served as a testing ground for U.S. imperialistic ambitions. The trend of American imperialism did not emerge solely as a reaction to the 9/11 attacks; as long ago as the administration of Thomas Jefferson, Grandin suggests, the United States harbored imperialistic intentions toward the Latin American region. Over the years, the U.S. interventions in Latin America have consistently mirrored the American tendency to spread its ideas and influence by application of military and economic force, Grandin notes. Military actions in Iraq and elsewhere should not be considered new or surprising, according to Grandin, because such activity has been replayed in Latin American again and again. Brad Hooper, writing in Booklist, called Grandin's work "contentious, certainly, but well presented." A Publishers Weekly reviewer called the book an "incisive study" and observed that "this timely book offers an analysis of the ideological foundations of today's foreign policy consensus" on military action and imperialistic expansion.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, February 15, 2006, Brad Hooper, review of Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism, p. 24.

Journal of Latin American Studies, February, 2002, Jennie Purnell, review of The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation, p. 170.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2006, review of Empire's Workshop, p. 273.

Latin American Research Review, summer, 2004, Jean Muteba Rahier, review of The Blood of Guatemala, p. 282.

NACLA Report on the Americas, May, 2001, Gerardo Renique, review of The Blood of Guatemala, p. 54.

Perspectives on Political Science, summer, 2000, Steve C. Ropp, review of The Blood of Guatemala, p. 179.

Publishers Weekly, February 6, 2006, review of Empire's Workshop, p. 55.