Description
Book SynopsisHeidi Tinsman offers a transnational history of how Chilean grapes created new forms of consumption and labor politics in both Chile and the United States during the late twentieth century and early twenty-first.
Trade Review"
Buying into the Regime is a pathbreaking study of gender, labor, and consumption in Chile and the United States. Heidi Tinsman masterfully integrates U.S. and Latin American history. Her book is not only a major contribution to Chilean history, it should also be required reading for U.S. historians and their graduate students. I anticipate that it will work beautifully in undergraduate courses as well."
—Julie Greene, author of
The Canal Builders: Making America's Empire at the Panama Canal"Linking production, consumption, and social conflict in grape production in California and Chile, Heidi Tinsman traces historical connections and interesting disconnects between the industries and social movements in both countries. United Farm Worker support for undocumented workers in California did not expand into an internationalist consciousness, while the anticonsumerism of anti-Pinochet activists overlooked the contradictory combination of empowerment and exploitation experienced by female fruit workers. A fascinating example of the benefits of a transnational approach."
—Florencia E. Mallon, editor of
Decolonizing Native Histories: Collaboration, Knowledge, and Language in the Americas“
Buying into the Regime is a fascinating history of grapes and consumption during the Cold War, focusing specifically on the close relationship between the United States and Chile….That the book consciously avoids simple answers makes it an especially welcome addition to the literature on the Cold War in Chile.” -- Gregory Weeks * Journal of Interdisciplinary History *
"An exceptionally rich work that will undoubtedlybbecome a staple of graduate-level food, labor, and gender courses for years to come." -- Bartow J. Elmore * Journal of American History *
"In this compelling work, Heidi Tinsman has opened up new ways to conceptualize transnationalism in history.... with Tinsman’s insights in hand, contemporary movement organizers can hope to avoid some of the mistakes of their predecessors." -- Eileen Findlay * Hispanic American Historical Review *
"Based on extensive field work and impressive archival research,
Buying into the Regime is a creative history of the Chilean grape and fruit industry and its relations to U.S. institutions, markets, and politics from the 1920s into the twenty-first century." -- Brian Loveman * American Historical Review *
“[A] brilliant and idiosyncratic addition to the burgeoning literature of commodity history…. Tinsman has written a sweeping and provocative book that encourages us to reframe our views of Chilean and US history.” -- Jason M. Colby * Canadian Journal of History *
"A wonderful model of rethinking imperial models of history and a rich analysis of how working people themselves, across vast distances, have taken on the challenges of promoting democracy within the deeply interwoven webs of global power." -- Dana Frank * Labor *
"I wholeheartedly recommend this book to those interested in comparative Latin American and US history, social movements, and rural and gender studies." -- Christobal Kay * Journal of Latin American Studies *
“Nonspecialists, graduate students, and undergraduates will read this important book easily and with enthusiasm. Specialists in Chilean, Latin American, US, labor, gender, and transnational history will agree that
Buying into the Regime is on the cutting edge of historical research. It is a brilliant example of linking local actors to larger historical processes, both within national borders and beyond them.” -- Brandi A. Townsend * History: Reviews of New Books *
"With grapes as her medium, Tinsman sheds new light on two complex relationships: that between the United States and Chile, and that between consumerism and social justice in both nations....Scholars of Chile, the United States, food, gender, and consumption will each learn a great deal from
Buying into the Regime." -- Tore C. Olsson * The Latin Americanist *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1. The Long Miracle: Collaborations in the Chilean Fruit Industry, 1900–1990 25
2. Fables of Abundance: Grape Workers and Consumption in Chile 64
3. The Fresh Sell: Marketing Grapes in the United States 103
4. Boycott Grapes! Challenges by the United Farm Workers and the Chile Solidarity Movement 146
5. Not Buying It: Democracy Struggles in Chile 207
Epilogue 255
Notes 267
Bibliography 331
Index
