{"product_id":"soldiers-of-the-nation-9780803278677","title":"Soldiers of the Nation","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn exploration of the military and political mobilization of popular sectors of Puerto Rican society as the island transitioned from Spanish to U.S. imperial rule.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“One of this book’s greatest merits is that it eludes the identitarian Manicheism that has weakened much of Puerto Rican historiography since the U.S. invasion in 1898 and whose interpretive key is the confrontation between master and subject. Instead, the author travels through the quicksand—misunderstood or discarded by certain patriotic morals—of 'colonial collaborations,' contact zones between the inside of what is indigenous and the foreign yet indispensable outside of the empire.”—Silvia Álvarez Curbelo, \u003ci\u003eReviews in American History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eSoldiers of the Nation\u003c\/i\u003e offers an important new history of Puerto Rico and its relationship with the United States.\"—Robert C. McGreevey, \u003ci\u003eJournal of American History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"\u003ci\u003eSoldiers of the Nation\u003c\/i\u003e is a well-written, tightly argued work of social history that constitutes a valuable contribution. The book should be required reading not only for students of Puerto Rican and American military history, but also for scholars in related fields such as colonialism and decolonization, diplomatic history, and the interrelationship between the military and society. It is a worthy addition to the University of Nebraska’s Studies in War, Society, and the Military publications.\"—Prisco Hernández-Ríos, \u003ci\u003eJournal of Military History\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Sheds light on the relationship between militarism and society and the attempt to culminate the political status of Puerto Rico after the approval of the Constitution of the Commonwealth.”—Carlos I. Hernández, \u003ci\u003eCentro: Journal of the Center for Puerto Rican Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“A clear-eyed scholarly analysis of the complex entanglements binding Puerto Ricans and Latinas\/os with militaries and militarism. . . . Both provocative and refreshing. . . . [This book offers us] a roadmap for understanding how we have arrived at this place of continued reliance on the military as a vehicle for social mobility and social standing that is increasingly hard to achieve. It is also an invitation to reflect on the limits and costs of this kind of inclusion.”—Gina Pérez, \u003ci\u003eLatino Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"This study has much to recommend it. Franqui’s archival research is exemplary, as evidenced by the wealth of materials gleaned from rarely cited collections on the island and mainland. Above all, he is successful in demonstrating the extent to which military service shaped modern Puerto Rico. \u003ci\u003eSoldiers of the Nation \u003c\/i\u003eshould be of interest to scholars of the island, and colonial military service more broadly.\"—Micah W. Wright, H-War\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSoldiers of the Nation\u003c\/i\u003e offers new and refreshing perspectives on the relationship between Puerto Rico and the United States, presenting a strong case for military service as a pathway toward both establishing Puerto Rican civic identity and as part of a broader process of Americanizing the population. In the process, Harry Franqui-Rivera establishes a new standard for examining civil-military relations. . . . \u003ci\u003eSoldiers of the Nation\u003c\/i\u003e is the next stage in better understanding the American military as an agent of social transformation and its immediate and close relationship to the Puerto Rican people—an immediate classic.”—Bobby Wintermute, co-host of \u003ci\u003eNew Books in Military History\u003c\/i\u003e and author of \u003ci\u003ePublic Health and the U.S. Military: A History of the Army Medical Department, 1818–1917\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Franqui-Rivera . . . has written the most useful military history of Puerto Rico in English, while discussing the importance of military service to the evolution of a Puerto Rican national identity. . . . A good read for anyone interested in the history of modern Puerto Rico, American colonial policy, or national military policy.\"—A. A. Nofi, \u003ci\u003eStrategy Page\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A superb text, solidly researched, and painstakingly argued. . . . [Franqui-Rivera] has shown that it is possible to write a history of the paradoxical effects of the military and modernity projects without negating, or being apologetic of, the imperial rule of the United States over Puerto Rico. Scholars in Latin American and Caribbean history\/studies, geographies with difficult and tense entanglements with the United States and its military apparatuses, would benefit greatly from his book.\"—Antonio Hernández-Matos, \u003ci\u003eEuropean Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSoldiers of the Nation\u003c\/i\u003e is the first book to make a coherent case for the significance of military bodies in the formation of Puerto Rico’s colonial history. The book’s real contribution is to show how, with every war and military mobilization, the United States and Puerto Rico wove a complex web of connections, agreements, and participatory hierarchies. Franqui-Rivera helps us understand how the class contradictions that Puerto Rican men in the military brought to anticolonial politics helped seal Puerto Rico’s fate in the mid-twentieth century.”—Aldo Lauria-Santiago, professor of history at Rutgers University and author of \u003ci\u003eTo Rise in Darkness: Revolution, Repression, and Memory in El Salvador\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003eList of Illustrations    \u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments    \u003cbr\u003e Introduction    \u003cbr\u003e 1. Birth of a Nation: A Labor of Thirty Years, 1868–1898    \u003cbr\u003e 2. Puerto Rican a la Americana: A Hearts and Minds Campaign, 1898–1914    \u003cbr\u003e 3. A New Day Has Dawned: World War I and Mobilization of the Peasant    \u003cbr\u003e 4. War against the Yankees! Prelude to the Battle over Modern Puerto Rico    \u003cbr\u003e 5. Education, Industrialization, and Decolonization: The Battlefields of World War II    \u003cbr\u003e 6. Fighting for the “Nation”? War at Home and Abroad    \u003cbr\u003e Conclusion    \u003cbr\u003e Notes    \u003cbr\u003e Bibliography    \u003cbr\u003e Index\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"University of Nebraska Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49405277274455,"sku":"9780803278677","price":45.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780803278677.jpg?v=1730489399","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/soldiers-of-the-nation-9780803278677","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}