Tiffany A. Sippial, Prostitution, Modernity, and the Making of the Cuban Republic, 1840–1920 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), pp. xii+237, $69.95, $29.95 pb.
the letter of Iberian laws, but on the initiatives of countless slaves who, for centuries, had tried to transform abstract legal provisions into personal rights. The free womb laws widened opportunities for claims-making, but many such practices had deep historical roots. The author frequently stresses that claims and arguments took on ‘new resonance’ (p. ) in the s, or that they reflected ‘changing ideas’ about women, maternity, pity and charity (p. ). In order to assess the scope of these changes, however, it is essential that serious research about these issues be carried out across longer periods of time, an invitation that historians should seriously consider. Deeply researched and richly argued, Conceiving Freedom is a major contribution to the study of slavery, gender, emancipation and the law in Latin America.