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Rockin' las Americas: The Global Politics of rock in Latin/o America.

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Rockin' las Americas: The Global Politics of Rock in Latin/o America. Edited by Deborah Pacini Hernandez, Hector Fernandez-L'Hoeste, and Eric Zolov. (Illuminations: Cultural Formations of the Americas.) Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2004. [ix, 420 p. ISBN 0822958414. $24.95.] Illustrations, map, discography, bibliography.

There can be no overstating the considerable impact of Latin-American culture on the U.S. and global pop music scene--just observe the widespread success and frequent appearance in record sales charts of artists such as Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez, Carlos Santana, and Los Lobos. Additionally. Latin rhythms such as tango, cha cha cha, mambo, and merengue have enlivened dancehalls in North America and Europe for decades. Although scholarly literature has long explored the cultural and social implications of these musical transmigrations, comparatively little attention has been given to rock music coming out of Latin American nations and among concentrated Hispanic populations in the United States--in short. Latin/o America.

The rapid growth and vast popularity of rock music in Central and South America originates from aftereffects of Western hegemony--the marketing of popular recordings as a by-product of a dominant capitalist culture. Yet the authors of the seventeen essays in this collection contend that after the original influx of U.S.- or U.K.-derived music, authentic individual rock music cultures have sprouted and become energized as collective forces in Latin/o American areas, with...

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