1900s
1950s
1970s
20th century
A01=Ezer Vierba
academic
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
analysis
Author_Ezer Vierba
automatic-update
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=HBJK
Category=HBLW
Category=NHK
coiba
colony
contemporary
COP=United States
country
critique
current events
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
disappearance
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
foucault
historical
history
institutional
institutions
interdisciplinary
jose antonio remon cantera
judicial
Language_English
leader
legal issues
literary
modern
murder
narrative
nation
nonfiction
PA=Available
panama
penal
political
politics
power
president
Price_€20 to €50
priest
PS=Active
regional
research
scholarly
sociology
softlaunch
south america
Product details
- ISBN 9780226342450
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 19 Jan 2021
- Publisher: The University of Chicago Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
Ezer Vierba's The Singer's Needle offers an innovative history of twentieth-century Panama that illuminates the nature of power and politics in a small but volatile nation. Using novelistic techniques, Vierba explores three episodes that proved critical to the shaping and erosion of contemporary Panamanian institutions: the establishment of a penal colony on the island of Coiba in 1919; the judicial drama following the murder of President Jose Antonio Remon Cantera in 1955; and the "disappearance" of a radical priest in 1971. The episodes are layered in different styles and perspectives, with the narrative voices both illuminating and concealing key moments that illustrate how powerful interests control and create social and political history. Vierba blends historical sociology with novelistic narrative and extensive empirical research, drawing on Michel Foucault's ideas about the inherent and intricate connections between power, interpretation, and representation. The result is a book that redefines conventional methods of historical writing.
In short, Vierba has produced a multifaceted and deeply felt novelistic tale that reveals not only the nature of power--both institutional and disciplinary--but the contemporary history of a complex country over the course of a tumultuous century.
Ezer Vierba is an instructor in the writing program at Harvard University.
