Originally posted by Dan Carkner
What about "Open Veins of Latin America" by Eduardo Galeano? He's more of a journalist/activist than a historian but it's definitely recommended to me by many latin americans. |
Just be careful to believe everything that book says
. You can safely divide by 10 the number of victims he describes in each chapter. What he tells is real though. What is not true is that Latin America has been nothing but a continent in chains; that's false. Galeano was a communist and the book was used for revolutionary purposes in the Castro guerilla times.
Curiosly enough, years after Galeano book appeared, some writers made fun of him in a book called "The handbook of the
perfect Latin American Idiot".... dedicated to Galeano, of course
The book is good, though, because it is a short resume of the history of the region, with a lot of exagerations though. Now, it is also amazingly entertaining. My advice is reading it, but check it out with other sources.
Pinguin