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22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Other Side of the Story....,
By
This review is from: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent [OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMER]
Sometimes it is vitally important to read "the other side" of history... and hear the voices of people telling their own story, being interpreters of their own experience. Galeano, both a historian and journalist, writes a masterful history of Latin America - giving voice to Latin American peoples. Much like Howard Zinn's work in A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.), Galeano tells the neglected story. He provides a well-researched history, but his gifts as a journalist shine as he knows how to tell a story that engages the reader... instead of overwhelming the reader with dates and data.
Many people (who never read this book) have discarded the validity of this book because Hugo Chavez gave it to Barack Obama... but I hope Pres. Obama has read it. The U.S. and western Europe have to confront centuries of oppression, exploitation, and injustice in Latin America. We can choose to live in ignorance... or begin to hear stories from our brothers and sisters in Latin America and work for a better, more just, future. Reading Galeano's excellent book is a good place to start the process toward justice. I read this book while on a trip to southern CA and Mexico. Numerous conversations were initiated as people noticed my book, especially in Mexico. These conversations only added to my learning experience. I highly recommend this book for students of history and those who want to have their eyes opened so that they might work for a better future. In my opinion, every single person from the West working, serving, vacationing, or studying in Latin America should read this book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The View from the South is Important,
By Four Bears (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent [OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMER]
I read this book out of curiosity--and interest in Latin America. I was advised that it was just rant or left-wing rant, but decided to see for myself. I came away with this as the main idea: "in Latin America, free enterprise is incompatible with civil liberties" as Galeano says in his commentary on the book in an afterward. The book catalogues the exploitation of "the people" --usually the indigenous people--by South American oligarchies and by their European and North American affiliates.
It's certainly been a controversial book. First published in 1971 and often condemned and frequently banned in Latin America, I doubt it's been on the radar in North American very long. The current edition was published in 1997 with a foreward by Isabel Allende. It's been in the news recently when President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela gave a copy to Obama and then when commentators speculated on whether or not he would read it. Actually, I hope he did. ([...]) My first impression was that Galeano's detractors were right, the book was just rant. Galeano is a journalist and he knows how to use words to move readers. My impression was that every sentence in the first chapter had emotionally-loaded words. If his ideas hadn't piqued my curiosity I might have put it down. Ensuing chapters might come to emotionally-loaded conclusions, but the presentation of evidence was impressive. I can't endorse the ideas completely because I don't know enough to evaluate everything he says, but I was impressed. Galeano's thesis is that the first the European conquerors (Spain and Portugal), later European business interests--mainly the British--and finally the US (government and business) have promised developmental assistance but delivered subservience largely by economic means--by keeping production costs low using raw materials and cheap labor from Latin American and then selling products for large profits, even selling them back to Latin American countries at the same time as they prevent them from producing their own products. In what seemed to me a telling comparison he contrasts conquistadors arriving in Latin American with the expectation of taking riches home to Europe with settlers in New England fleeing Europe and determined to grow their food and make the products they need for themselves--and to stay, not seek treasure to bring home. In what turned out to be an advantage for North America, there was no gold or silver, not even promising farms land so the British, in comparison to the Iberians, tended to ignore the colonies rather than plunder them. In this idea, Galeano reminds me of Fareed Zakaria's thesis in The Future of Freedom where he explains that wealth in the form of natural resources is actually a deterrent to democracy because it leads to a ruling class that appropriates the resources and uses them to develop the country (or to line their own pockets) rather the depending on the population to supply funds for the government in the form of taxes. Elections don't mean much if the people doing the electing have no power. And clearly immigration to America took a far different path in the North than in the South. The result was the development of a growing middle class of local producers in North America--something that didn't happen in most Latin American countries which developed local oligarchies who themselves continued to be exploited by powerful patrons. Galeano's text is colorful and impressive, even for someone like me for whom the names and historical events are not familiar. He's a master of the powerful and memorable phrases than sum up (probably somewhat simplistically but I ended up thinking often right nonetheless) the problem. "Underdevelopment in South America is a result of development elsewhere", " a Volkswagen Republic is much like a banana republic", "nationalization doesn't necessarily redistribute wealth". Over and over again he talks about the wealth concentrated among an oligarchy and the widespread poverty at the bottom that has characterized many Latin American countries for centuries, making it clear over and over again that "the outposts pay the price for the wealth of the centers". The centers were usually the ports that grew up to serve the Europeans and later North Americans who needed to ship the gold, the silver, the meat, the rubber, the bananas or whatever. It's easy for a US citizen to agree with all the details about exploitation by Europeans, harder to deal with exploitation by North Americans. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner (20070 confirms US involvement in supporting the oligarchies that support the US companies. It struck me reading about the maneuverings of American companies that, whether needing bananas or rubber or petroleum, they were operating not all that differently from how we're discovering they operate at home and it's abundantly clear at this point that the US is moving toward something like the Latin American republics with wealth increasingly concentrated among the few while the middle class which enabled the US to be different from its Latin American neighbors is dwindling. Power in the US is increasingly in the hands of corporations--often multi-nationals with loyalties primarily to their own interests which may or may not be the people of the United States. But perhaps I push this too far. I have to note that Galeano, as many other Latin Americans, deplores the fact that the US has even co-opted the name "America". (I had a hard time avoiding it in this review.) Bottom line: This is a highly emotional book, but the logic and the evidence is quite definitely not lacking. I tend to compare him to Michael Moore, who goes after public attention with emotionally charged rhetoric, but backs it up with facts and details that prove the need for drawing attention to the issue. I cannot evaluate the detail and no doubt Galeano exaggerates and rants but it's still a compelling book that's worth the attention of a thinking person.
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The book Obama won't read.,
By
This review is from: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent [OPEN VEINS OF LATIN AMER]
Eduardo Galeano completed Open Veins of Latin America in 1970. Millions of copies of it in dozens of languages have been sold around the world since then; it has been revised twice since then with addenda and new introductions for anniversary editions. But the distinctive yellow cover remains the same as does the strong narrative voice which leads the reader to a seamless journey through the complexities of Latin American history and a glimpse of the future--not only of the region, but of the world. Latin America is much like the canary in the coal mine which shows us how toxic greed and addiction to cheap consumer goods can choke off our own economic breath and leave us with unprecedented levels of unemployment, urban poverty and devalued currency. Galeano's book shows us how unlimited global growth has, in the words of Ed Abbey, "the etiology of the cancer cell," whose ultimate aim is the destruction of the host.
I bought my first copy of this book in 1973 from Monthly Review Press. Since then I have bought a dozen copies and given them to friends, students and colleagues. I don't know if they've all read it or appreciated it. Like surgery, reading his book can be a painful experience, an operation to excise a lethal tumor (that of the comforting lies of the mass media) so that truth can flow again. President Obama received a copy of this book as a gift from Venezuelan Present Hugo Chavez at the Summit of the Americas held this year in Port of Spain, Trinidad. When pressured by a "reporter" from Fox network about the appropriateness of receiving a gift from the Venezuelan leader, Osama replied, "Just because I accepted the book, doesn't mean I'm going to read it." I first met Eduardo Galeano while walking along the Rambla in Montevideo in the late 1990s. He was amazed at the success of the book which far exceeded his own modest expectations. He was also saddened by the fact that so many Latin Americans could not afford to buy it and that so many others were illiterate so could not read it. One story which moved him was that of a student from Buenos Aires who went from bookstore to bookstore reading bits of it in snatched moments because he hadn't the money to purchase a copy. Recalling that story makes Obama's comment even more embarrassing. Galeano has more firsthand knowledge of Latin America than any author writing today. His book is written for the non-specialist but is painstakingly documented. It is accessible but not simplistic. It is history, literature, politics, economics and social science. Finally, for anyone who proposes to be an effective citizen of the Americas or a knowledgeable citizen of the world, it is essential reading. Let's hope that if Obama doesn't change his mind about reading it, he will pass his copy on to Hillary Clinton.
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