Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History
This book explores the history of the Dominican Republic as it evolved from the first European colony in the Americas into a modern nation under the rule of Rafael Trujillo. It investigates the social foundations of Trujillo’s exceptionally enduring and brutal dictatorship (1930-1961) and, more broadly, the way power is sustained in such non-democratic regimes.

The author reveals how the seemingly unilateral imposition of power by Trujillo in fact depended on the regime’s mediation of profound social and economic transformations, especially through agrarian policies that assisted the nation’s large independent peasantry. By promoting an alternative modernity that sustained peasants’ free access to land during a period of economic growth, the regime secured peasant support as well as backing from certain elite sectors. This book thus elucidates for the first time the hidden foundations of the Trujillo regime.

1101797394
Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History
This book explores the history of the Dominican Republic as it evolved from the first European colony in the Americas into a modern nation under the rule of Rafael Trujillo. It investigates the social foundations of Trujillo’s exceptionally enduring and brutal dictatorship (1930-1961) and, more broadly, the way power is sustained in such non-democratic regimes.

The author reveals how the seemingly unilateral imposition of power by Trujillo in fact depended on the regime’s mediation of profound social and economic transformations, especially through agrarian policies that assisted the nation’s large independent peasantry. By promoting an alternative modernity that sustained peasants’ free access to land during a period of economic growth, the regime secured peasant support as well as backing from certain elite sectors. This book thus elucidates for the first time the hidden foundations of the Trujillo regime.

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Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History

Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History

by Richard Lee Turits
Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History

Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in Dominican History

by Richard Lee Turits

Overview

This book explores the history of the Dominican Republic as it evolved from the first European colony in the Americas into a modern nation under the rule of Rafael Trujillo. It investigates the social foundations of Trujillo’s exceptionally enduring and brutal dictatorship (1930-1961) and, more broadly, the way power is sustained in such non-democratic regimes.

The author reveals how the seemingly unilateral imposition of power by Trujillo in fact depended on the regime’s mediation of profound social and economic transformations, especially through agrarian policies that assisted the nation’s large independent peasantry. By promoting an alternative modernity that sustained peasants’ free access to land during a period of economic growth, the regime secured peasant support as well as backing from certain elite sectors. This book thus elucidates for the first time the hidden foundations of the Trujillo regime.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780804751056
Publisher: Stanford University Press
Publication date: 05/26/2004
Edition description: 1
Pages: 400
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.89(d)

About the Author

Richard Lee Turits is Associate Professor of History at the University of Michigan.

Table of Contents

Introduction: The Paradoxes of Despotism1
1.Freedom in el Monte: From Slaves to Independent Peasants in Colonial Santo Domingo25
2.Imagining Modernity: Peasants, Property, and the State in the Century after Independence52
3.Peasant-State Compromise and Rural Transformation under the Trujillo Dictatorship80
4.Negotiating Dictatorship: Landowners, State Officials, and Everday Contests over Agrarian Reform115
5.Bordering the Nation: Race, Colonization, and the 1937 Haitian Massacre in the Dominican Frontier144
6.Taming the Countryside: Agricultural Colonies as Rural Reform under the Trujillo Regime181
7.Memories of Dictatorship: Rural Culture and Everyday Forms of State Formation under Trujillo206
8.The Birth of a Dominican Sugar Empire and the Decline of the Trujillo Regime232
Notes265
Bibliography349
Index369
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History
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History
Latin American History
Caribbean & West Indian History
General & Miscellaneous Caribbean History

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