In a lecture last Saturday, Professor of American Studies and History Martha Sandweiss discussed her new book, "Print the Legend: Photography and the American West."

The book documents how photography created and shaped popular understanding of the region. "From photographs, Americans found out what they had, who they were and what they could be," said Sandweiss.

According to Sandweiss, photography and the American West came of age together. Daguerreotypes, or early photographs, were invented around the same time that much of the American West became part of the United States.

The lecture included a slideshow of many daguerreotypes, including photographs of Californian gold miners and the Mexican-American War. These were the first photographs of war and the first evidence of photojournalism.

Sandweiss became interested in photography and the American West when she was the curator of photographs at a museum in Fort Worth, Texas during the 1980s. "I oversaw a collection of a quarter of a million photographs of the American West and this launched my interest," she said.

Sandweiss said that the book was a culmination of 20 years of research.

David Korngold '06, a student in Sandweiss' American Studies 11: Imagine the American Nation class attended the lecture. "It was really amazing to see her as one of the world's leading experts in these photographs and then have her as my professor," said Korngold. "She really forces us to look at what the image says about the time period, and how it was viewed then and how it is viewed now."

Her latest book has received enthusiastic reviews from her colleagues. "Martha Sandweiss deserves special praise for her pioneering book on photography and the American West," said Howard Lamar, who is a professor of history at Yale University, to Yale University Press. "Told in a delightful, often wry and humorous narrative style, "Print the Legend" is a major new history of photography that also provides us with a richer, more insightful history of how we came to visualize the American West."

Sandweiss has written numerous books, including "Laura Gilpin: An Enduring Grace" and is the co-editor of "The Oxford History of the American West."

Corrales links Latin American politics to economy

Assistant Professor of Political Science Javier Corrales has written a new book entitled "Presidents Without Parties: The Politics of Economic Reform in Argentina and Venezuela in the 1990s."

Looking specifically at the cases of Argentina and Venezuela, Corrales argues that the executive must have the support of the ruling party in order for economic reform to be successful.

"The book looks at the problems in governing economies when presidents try to govern without the support of the parties," said Corrales. He asserts that the variation in the executive relationship with the ruling party allowed Argentina to have success with economic reform in the mid- 1990s followed by a collapse in 2001, while Venezuela is still struggling with an economic downturn.

The "enormous optimism" of the 1990s in Latin American countries following the crises and problems in the late 1980s led many scholars to try to explain how the Latin states were trying to govern their economies. The question of the "capacity of states to govern effectively" motivated Corrales to write this book.

The book has taken Corrales more than 10 years to write, over which time his thesis has changed several times. "Part of doing research is amending your arguments and testing them out," he said.

Corrales' interest in Latin American politics developed gradually. His focus in graduate school was European politics and international relations. Once he realized that he found developing countries more interesting, Corrales traveled to the region and had the opportunity to do field research.

Corrales has been a member of the faculty since 1997. "Presidents Without Parties" is his first book, but he has written numerous book chapters, as well as pieces for solicited publications.

"His knowledge of Latin American politics is astounding," said Dana Britto '06. "At the beginning of each class, he usually updates us about what's going on in Latin America."