Open Veins of Latin America : Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

by Galeano, Eduardo H.

• ISBN13: 9780853459910
• ISBN10: 0853459916
• Edition: 25th
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-06-01
• Publisher: Ingram Pub Services

Summary

Since its U.S. debut a quarter-century ago, this brilliant text has set a new standard for historical scholarship of Latin America. It is also an outstanding political economy, a social and cultural narrative of the highest quality, and perhaps the finest description of primitive capital accumulation since Marx.Rather than chronology, geography, or political successions, Eduardo Galeano has organized the various facets of Latin American history according to the patterns of five centuries of exploitation. Thus he is concerned with gold and silver, cacao and cotton, rubber and coffee, fruit, hides and wool, petroleum, iron, nickel, manganese, copper, aluminum ore, nitrates, and tin. These are the veins which he traces through the body of the entire continent, up to the Rio Grande and throughout the Caribbean, and all the way to their open ends where they empty into the coffers of wealth in the United States and Europe.Weaving fact and imagery into a rich tapestry, Galeano fuses scientific analysis with the passions of a plundered and suffering people. An immense gathering of materials is framed with a vigorous style that never falters in its command of themes. All readers interested in great historical, economic, political, and social writing will find a singular analytical achievement, and an overwhelming narrative that makes history speak, unforgettably.

Table of Contents

FOREWORD	ix	(5)
ISABEL ALLENDE
FROM IN DEFENSE OF THE WORD	xiv	(2)
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT	xvi
INTRODUCTION: 120 MILLION CHILDREN IN THE EYE OF THE HURRICANE	1	(10)
PART I: MANKIND'S POVERTY AS A CONSEQUENCE OF THE WEALTH OF THE LAND	11	(162)
1. LUST FOR GOLD, LUST FOR SILVER	11	(48)
2. KING SUGAR AND OTHER AGRICULTURAL MONARCHS	59	(75)
3. THE INVISIBLE SOURCES OF POWER	134	(39)
PART II: DEVELOPMENT IS A VOYAGE WITH MORE SHIPWRECKS THAN NAVIGATORS	173	(90)
4. TALES OF PREMATURE DEATH	173	(32)
5. THE CONTEMPORARY STRUCTURE OF PLUNDER	205	(58)
PART III: SEVEN YEARS AFTER	263	(24)
REFERENCES	287	(20)
INDEX	307