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Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity

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Nelson García Canclini's Hybrid Cultures: Strategies for Entering and Leaving Modernity, originally published in 1989 as, Culturas híbridas: Estrategias para entrar y salir de la modernidad, mirrors a certain period, the XX century, and a few countries. This is not a book about hybrid cultures and modernism in Latin America, but about hybridization and modernity mainly in Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, with a few references to Colombia, Perú, and Venezuela. García Canclini speaks of transculturation and hybrid cultures, yet he doesn't bother to acknowledge, for example, the work of the Cuban writer Fernando Ortiz, who coined the term, not thinks of considering the hybrid cultures in the Caribbean. About the Caribbean, there are two passing references to Cuba's music and Santeria, and not a single mentioning to any of its writers and artists: Wifredo Lam? Alejo Carpentier? Nicolas Guillen?--they must be Belgian.
With the exception of the chapter on "Latin American Contradictions: Modernism without Modernization?", the other chapters appear to be grounded on the opinions of others. Ironically, for a writer that at times is critical of Latin Americans for seeking their ideas elsewhere, or for appropriating early XX century European movements, N. García Canclini is very much indebted to European and North American scholars. The title of the book should be: Hybrid Cultures: A Study of Modernity in Mexico, with References to Brazil and Argentina.