Focuses on the book "Casa-grande e senzala," by Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre. In his book, Freyre introduces the idea of Brazilian racial democracy (democracia racial) and analyzes the views of black people in Brazil. Freyre and his ideas were said to be controversial and racist and many believed that these ideas created myths within society
Reviews books on Afro-Hispanic and Caribbean literature. Includes The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures, by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths and Helen Tiffin; Fifty Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Critical Sourcebook, edited by Daryl Cumber Dance; Nicolas Guillen: Popular Poet of the Caribbean, by Ian Isidore Smart.;
Argues that although evangelical Christianity involves a variety of beliefs that are incompatible with a strong ethnic identity, this religion also includes a range of ideas and practices that nourish rather than corrode black identity.
Article is concerned with the relations of Afro-Latin Americans to modes of production (slavery, capitalism, socialism), economic institutions (the plantation, transnational corporations), economic development models, transnational relations, political systems, institutions, behavior, group and class relations (including class struggle), social mobility, and political mobilization.
Balutansky reviews C. L. R. James, the Artist as Revolutionary by Paul Buhle, C. L. R. James's Caribbean edited by Paget Henry and Paul Buhle, The C. L. R. James Reader edited by Anna Grimshaw, Special Delivery: The Letters of C. L. R. James to Constance Webb, 1939-1948 edited by Anna Grimshaw and C. L. R. James: His Intellectual Legacies edited by Selwyn R. Cudjoe and William E. Cain.;
