University of Chicago Press The Singer`s Needle – An Undisciplined History of Panamá

Product Description 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. Review " The Singer's Needle is a real page-turner--in fact, it's a path-breaker. Reading Vierba's unusual book is like playing hopscotch as you skid between its heterogeneous elements. The skill and artistry involved in sliding the different forms of writing and different voices on top of one another, and the intimate tone achieved, is astonishingly refreshing."-- "Michael Taussig, Columbia University" " The Singer's Needle is a stunning achievement: Imagine if Foucault had studied Panamá and written as clearly and compellingly as Camus. Immersing himself in the social, political, economic, and cultural history of twentieth-century Panamá, Vierba combines careful and creative archival research, sophisticated theory, and compelling storytelling. His book is an extraordinary work of history, about both what happened in the past and what it means to think and write about it today. Historians of other places and times will marvel at, and learn from, Vierba's bold and brilliant blend of scholarship and art."-- "James Goodman, Rutgers University" About the Author Ezer Vierba is an instructor in the writing program at Harvard University.