Whispering in the Giant's Ear: A Frontline Chronicle from Bolivia's War on Globalization (Paperback)

by William Powers (Author), William D. Powers (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
During the last five years, the struggles of Bolivia's indigenous community against government corruption and globalization have garnered unprecedented visibility for the nation around the world. As an aid worker living in Bolivia, Powers did not just witness the change; he was immersed in the action, forced to juggle the country's internal conflict with his environmental organization's mission of saving the rain forest. By "thinking locally and acting globally," he forges a delicate partnership with Indians and multinational energy corporations to designate a swath of the Amazon forest for absorbing greenhouse gases. While matters of politics and the environment provide the framework for the book, much of the story is focused on the friendships he builds through genuine curiosity and emotion as he attempts to truly understand the needs of the people around him. What results is a deeply personal and informative chronicle of Powers's ambitions, the Indians' ambitions and perhaps most importantly in a country as physically diverse and dramatic as Bolivia, nature's ambitions. Although more background on Bolivia would have been helpful, the book succeeds in using the country's recent history to reveal how the worldwide battle for increased economic equality and environmental conservation operates locally. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Powers wrote about his experiences helping manage sustainable development projects in Liberia in Blue Clay People (2005) and now presents a piquant and provocative report on his work with Bolivia's largest conservation organization. Writing with self-deprecating humor and fluid understanding of the complex dynamics at work in this persistently poor land, Powers exposes the environmental and cultural destruction wrought by multinationals and the corresponding--and quite remarkable--uprisings of Bolivia's indigenous peoples in defense of the rain forests, their physical and spiritual home and the habitat for endangered species. Bolivia is the site of the world's largest Kyoto Protocol rain-forest experiment and pioneering debt-for-nature and carbon-credit projects, and Powers is keenly sensitive to the realities, possibilities, and paradoxes inherent in Bolivia's revolutionary politics and environmental innovations. By profiling a courageous and pragmatic Indian activist, tracking complicated disputes over land ownership and use, and detailing such green endeavors as "eco-wood" production, Powers chronicles Bolivia's success, against all odds, in leading the way toward creation of biosphere-sustaining and socially just societies. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA (May 16, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596911034
• ISBN-13: 978-1596911031
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #68,739 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #4 in	Books > Travel > Latin America > South America > Bolivia
  #56 in	Books > Nonfiction > Politics > Globalization

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simply a must-read, June 1, 2006

By	Richard Jordin (rrj2003) (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

I thought I'd just grab a primer on Bolivia, but got a whole lot more when I picked this book up. This guy is so multi-faceted, you never know what he's going to write next. Nearly every passage in his work make you angry, make you take sides, make you pause with a sense of befuddlement. Sometimes I folded it in front of me just to let a particularly beautiful revelation or moment sink in.

For anyone who is eager (or compelled) to learn about the actualities of Bolivia's incredible past five years, its "war on globalization", this is the book to read. Powers, who was one of the few "there", talking and sharing with those involved and wholly understands what occurred. This is apparent in his telling of the Indian road-blocks, impending rain-forest catastrophe, and the stories of real people that you can relate to.

After reading William Powers, the world becomes a far stranger, grander, mythical, more intriguing--and puzzling-- place than ever before.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book on environmental efforts, relationships in Bolivia, September 11, 2006

By	P. W. Gruber (Arlington, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have to say, I'm envious of Bill Powers' writing abilities and his experience in Bolivia. Thanks to his detailed descriptions of character conversations, speeches, emotions, reactions, etc., I feel like I could easily recognize any of his Conservation International colleagues - Salvador, Smithers, Len - if I saw any one of them on the street...or deep in the Bolivian jungle. I did wonder whatever happened to the author's relationships with Daniel and Anaí - two of the author's close friends - but at the same time both side-stories were pleasantly left open to the possibilities. This book provides a highly readable, history of Bolivia and it's current political and environmental challenges. In addition, it provides a detailed look into the relationships between a "gringo" do-gooder and his Bolivian counterparts.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative book on an important topic., March 8, 2007

By	William Rand (Cleveland, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I learned of the concept of carbon credits when I read Big Coal. It seemed like an interesting idea, but I was curious about investigating it from the perspective of those countries participating on the other side of things. Whispering in the Giant's Ear was an excellent choice to reveal the conseqenses of our exploitation of non-renewable resources on "less developed" nations. Powers does an outstanding job of providing an interesting narrative with which to educate the reader about the role carbon credits are playing in the struggle of indigenous people to gain political power in a nation that is caught up in the process of globalization. The number of characters is not so many as to cause confusion, but enough to provide insight into several segments of Bolivian society. A sympathetic portrait of the indigenous peoples of the poorest of South American nations.