Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot [Paperback]

Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza (Author), Carlos Alberto Montaner (Author), Alvaro Vargas Llosa (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 25, 2001

By opening the ever-escalating debate regarding Latin America's "underdeveloped" status and cloaking the seriousness of the situation with wit and humor, the Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot reached number one status on the nonfiction bestseller lists in many countries in Latin America. It reveals the connection between economic success and cultural values--attitudes toward work, education, health care and community--and the consequence of the Latin American people retaining or evolving these values.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Three Latin Americans team up to shred the slavish political correctness that they see dominating Latin American elites…. Exaggerated, even unfair at times, this book nevertheless provides a rollicking good read. (Foreign Affairs )

Deeply iconoclastic…. It is a valuable work of historical conservation…it succeeds admirably. (The New Criterion )

About the Author

Plinio Mendoza, Carlos Montaner, and Alvaro Llosa are the authors of Los Fabricantes de Miseria. Mendoza lives in Bogota, Colombia; Montaner lives in Madrid; Llosa lives in Miami; and Michaela Ames lives in Ohio.

Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Madison Books (September 25, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156833236X
• ISBN-13: 978-1568332369
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #696,434 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

129 of 144 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book, the Perfect L. Idiot is finally exposed!, March 2, 2000

By 

Karen Helweg-Larsen (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot (Hardcover)

I was very surprised to finally read a book that doesn't portray Latin America as a "victim" of the US or the Old World. I think these three authors intelligently challenge the populist ideologies and myths of the left and the right that have made so much damage all over the spanish speaking countries south of the USA. Having met many "perfect latin american idiots" in the past, I can see now why they are so enraged with the succes of this book. They are perfectly described and they don't look pretty. For anyone else, this book offers a fresh, sharp insight in to Latin American issues that until recently were considered property of marxist and nationalist leaning intellectuals. These writers are shooting straight to the heart and they make no apologies.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Reflections about Latin America, July 24, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book that examines the causes of Latin America's political and economical troubles from a libertarian point of view, debunking the old prejudices spread by the leftists - the idiots! - about that part of the world, which are still dominant in the mainstream media.

Usually, Latin America is presented as a land where free enterprise and private property clearly failed the challenge of development, state interventionism (or socialism...) being depicted as the unique possible choice to solve and fight the continent's poverty.

The authors sucessfully demonstrate the complete wrongness of this perspective: Latin America's problem is not a lack of state interventionism, but an excess of it, the historical existence of a centralist tradition suspicious about real liberalism (in the european tradition of the word) and freedom of enterprise, giving her preference to the creation of heavy bureaucratic systems and gigantic conglomerates of ineffective public companies, usually managed without any kind of economic rationality, only obeying to unclear and not well defined political criterions, Cuba being the main paradigm of the bad consequences of this model (the chapter about Fidel's island is simply superb).

As I said initially, this is a fine book and the only reason I don't rate it with five stars is the following one: even the authors, in minor points, are not completely free of leftist idiocy, especially when they speak about extra Latin America realities...

40 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Subverting the dominant thought paradigm!, July 5, 2004

By 

Brian M. Straight (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot (Paperback)

I don't think anyone contends the US is innocent of many evils in Latin America. Everyone knows that we have done some bad stuff there. However, using that as the sole explanation for why the region continues underdeveloped is out of touch with reality. I get that sort of thing from professors in my Latin American studies grad program all the time and it rings hollow when one knows some of the counterfactual evidence in existense. This book does a good job of bringing that out. The only problem is that there are some factual accuracies. Example-- the authors ID 1977 as the year Archbishop Romero was killed in El Salvador. This is false. It was 1981, and they probably meant to refer to the 1976 assassination of Romero's friend Rutilio Grande. Little veting errors like this one are not too big a deal, though. The overall point that the US is not the only one to blame for Latin America's problems rings loud and clear. Ths authors do a sound job of making their case based on myriad historical examples which are well-documented and often selectively ignored by many aficionados of Latin American history who prefer to see the region as victims of Yankee aggression.