Books by "Peter L. De La Cruz"
2 books found
When Cuba met Japan in the finals of Major League Baseball’s 2006 World Baseball Classic (WBC), many among the international audience were shocked that a purported “amateur” team could challenge for the sport’s first true world championship. But those who had paid attention to international tournaments were hardly surprised by Cuba’s strong showing against all-star teams of Puerto Rican, Dominican, Venezuelan, and U.S. major leaguers. The undisputed champions of global baseball, Cuba had reigned supreme for better than a half-century at the avowed American national game. In this groundbreaking volume, Peter Bjarkman traces the full arc of island baseball history, from the pioneering era of integrated play in the winter leagues, across the many triumphs of the post-revolution decades, and up through Cuba’s initial WBC triumphs.
This most recent of the Tamesis Companion series traces the evolution of the major creative aspects of Mexican culture from pre-Columbian times to the present. Dealing in turn with the cultures of Mesoamerica, the colonial period, the onset of independence and the modern era, the author explores Aztec arts, the role of the performing arts in the process of evangelisation, manifestations of cultural dependence, of the search for national identity, and the struggle for modernity, drawing examples from such diverse activities as architecture, painting, music, dance, literature, film and media. There is also a brief account of the distinctive characteristics of Mexican Spanish. Maps, a chronology, a bibliographical essay and a lengthy bibliography round off this comprehensive guide, making it an indispensable research tool for those seriously interested in Mexican culture. Peter Standish is Professor of Spanish at East Carolina University, a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina.