Customer Reviews (2)

Excellent book
This book was very well written.It provided an in-depth analysis to the politics of Latin America. Francisco Durand is a great writer and also a famous professor of poltical sciences. Good job!

First comparative study on Latin American trade associations
Sweeping changes in many Latin American nations have transformed business elites into key political and economic players. This volume analyzes the extent to which economic and political changes have convinced businesselites to strengthen their employers associations to influence the policyprocess. Also explored are the implications of these changes for theconsolidation of democracy. ... Read more

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"This is history as it should be written: massive research and thorough documentation producing a story that tells itself. Recommended for academic history, labor, and Latin American studies collections." Choice "Foner's book is primarily valuable as a documentary record. It pays meticulous attention to the labour and socialist press of the time. . . . [A] worthy source of information." Latin America Connexions ... Read more

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This study examines the wholesale trade in sugar from Brazil to markets in Europe. The principal market was northwestern Europe, but for much of the time between 1550 and 1630 Portugal was drawn into the conflict between Habsburg Spain and the Dutch Republic. In spite of political obstacles, the trade persisted because it was not subject to monopolies and was relatively lightly regulated and taxed. The investment structure was highly international, as Portugal and northwestern Europe exchanged communities of merchants who were mobile and inter-imperial in both their composition and organization. This conclusion challenges an imperial or mercantilist perspective of the Atlantic economy in its earliest phases. ... Read more

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This innovative volume brings together original essays by leading historians of the Atlantic World, representing the latest developments in historiography of the period. The volume takes a comparative approach, with individual essays examining governance in British, Portuguese, French, Dutch and Native America.As a whole, these essays present the argument that coercive imperial authority has been vastly overrated in previous scholarship due to factors like distance, the primacy of trade over politics, and the refusal of "colonized" peoples to recognize European authority.While some of the essays look at the relationships between imperial centers and colonial peripheries, others examine interactions and experiences of people at the peripheries of their respective empires, including Native Americans, African Americans and Euroamericans. No other book collects essays on the New World empires in one volume.

Contributors:Ida Altman, H.V. Bowen, Philip Boucher, Amy Turner Bushnell, Leslie Choquette, Christine Daniels, Jack P. Greene, Mary Karasch, Wim Klooster, Elizabeth Mancke, Peter S. Onuf, John Jay Tepaske, David J. Weber, Michael Zuckerman. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Well-recommended by the Journal of American History
Quite a worthy book for those interested in aspects of the comparative histories of various colonial empires in North America.Do read the table of contents - where you'll find several essays dealing with Spanish colonial history - and decide for yourself, but as a professional historian I'd highly recommend this book.

No word about the Spanish Empire?
This book talks about the europeans in the new world (America). Apparently Dutch (a dutch empire in the new world?), French (?), Brittish, Portugesse empires fall into this category, but not the Spanish one, which happens to be the arliest and the biggest of all. A book about european empires in America without Spain is like a book about american gansters where italoamerican ones are left outside. ... Read more

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This work proposes a new American economic community as a response to the rise of the European Community and the increasing domination of the Asian market by Japan. The author develops a strategy and structure for such an American community--including North, Central, and South America--which would represent the largest economic market in the world. He proposes a massive free trade zone including all of the Western Hemisphere, which would not only revitalize the economic position of the United States but would raise the standards of living of all nations in this hemisphere. ... Read more

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A comparative examination of international capital movements in Latin America and their influence on democracy and development. It asserts that those countries that suffered the most capital flight had previously faced fewer structural trade problems. ... Read more

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A study of the powerful impact that sugar had on U.S.-Dominican relations as the primary vehicle of reciprocal manipulation from 1958 to 1962, Sugar and Power examines the development of the sugar industry in the Dominican Republic. Hall uncovers new evidence that supports the belief that U.S.-Latin American relations during this period were frequently a two-way street, with the United States reacting to Latin American initiatives just as frequently as Latin Americans responded to American initiatives. Both Eisenhower and Kennedy used sugar quota legislation as a foreign policy tool. At the same time, the Trujillo regime played upon Washington's fear of communism in response to the Cuban revolution to obtain an expanded sugar quota. ... Read more

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With the introduction of new production methods and technological innovation, tradesmen and workers encountered new challenges. This study examines the development of trade unions as a manifestation of working class experience in late Gilded Age America. It underscores both the distinctive and the common features of trade unionism across four occupations: building tradesmen, cigar makers, garment workers, and printers. While reactions differed, the unions representing these workers displayed a convergence in their strategic orientation, programmatic emphasis and organizational modus operandi. As such, they were not disparate organizations, concerned only with sectional interests, but participants in an organizational-network in which cooperation and solidarity became benchmarks for the labor movement. ... Read more

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This study looks at union responses to the changes in the Latin American car industry in the last 15 years. It considers the impact of the shift towards export production and regional integration, and the effect of political changes on union reponses. ... Read more

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This timely and important study offers detailed histories of North and South America to illuminate how different cultural values have produced widely disparate social and economic outcomes. In the context of the present, the book explores what can be done to enhance the prospects for forging a dynamic community in the Western Hamisphere. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Great
A really first-rate book that states the obvious--which, in these PC days we're not supposed to say--and states it lucidly.

The Pan American Dream: A Historic Paradigm Shift
Harrison has written one of the most important and provocative books on U.S.-Latin American relations published in the last quarter century. Along with his earlier work, "Underdevelopment is a State of Mind: The Latin American Case", it is required reading for those who wish to understand why more than 50 years of international aid to the region has failed to produce sustainable economic progress, social justice and stable democracies.

Harrison has shifted the focus of Latin America's development crisis to cultural deficiencies and family values. His books are reminiscent of Daniel Patrick Moynihan's analyses of the crisis of the black family, Francis Fukuyama's "Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity", and John McWhorten's recent book, "Losing the Race". Much like Senator Moynihan's writings were dismissed as "racist", time has proven him correct. Harrison's courageous leadership in identifying similar cultural and value weaknesses in Latin American societies has generated the same unproductive name calling from leftists whose prescriptions have repeatedly failed to achieve sustainable development in Latin America. International aid agencies and universities do a real disservice to millions of Latin Americans mired in misery by ignoring Harrison's critical point about the cultural roots of their persistent poverty.

Since so many books on Latin America are poorly written and present distorted views of the region, "The Pan American Dream" is a pleasure to read that makes it ideal for introductory courses and study groups. Chapter Four on the destructive role of American intellectuals and the positive contributions of the United Fruit Company is guaranteed to stimulate intense discussion and debate. Given the rigid leftist orthodoxy that dominates so much teaching about Latin America, Harrison's arguments are a breath of fresh air and reflect a historic paradigm shift in analyzing U.S.-Latin American relations.

It should be noted that a growing number of leading Latin American and U.S. writers agree with Harrison's conclusions. Indeed, Harrison draws extensively on the Venezuelan Carlos Rangel and his 1976 book, "The Latin Americans: Their Love-Hate Relationship with the United States". Those who charge Harrison with "racism" should see similar analyses by Mario Vargas Llosa, one of Latin America's most prominent writers and the book "Guide to the Perfect Latin American Idiot" that has been a regional best-seller since its publication in 1996. These and other writers, such as the Argentine Mariano Grandona, and those other academics who contributed to Harrison's most recent book "CULTURE MATTERS: How Values Shape Human Progress" clearly represent a dramatic paradigm shift in thinking about the root causes of underdevelopment. Harrison should be congratulated for his intellectual courage. He merits far greater attention by those concerned with helping the Latin American poor and creating a more positive and constructive Western Hemisphere community of nations.

Save your money
While few would deny that culture matters, Harrison would like you to believe that it is all that matters. The book does not present any data to back his twisted arguments apart from self serving anecdotes on every conference he attended and every conversation with minor celebrities. Once you get past the name dropping, however, you find a racist isolationist arguing against NAFTA (he believes that the stereotype that "Mexican are corrupt, have no social consciousness and completely disregard human rights" "is "largely accurate" -pg. 215) and against immigration ( "large numbers of unskilled, uneducated immigrants...confound the high priority objective of steadily increasing high incomes for Americans" ..."our policy must be responsive to the needs of our society, not the failures of other societies" pg. 251).Harrison gets in real conceptual trouble when he repeatedly criticizes economists that emphasize "market signals" to create prosperity.To explain the progress in Chile he has to do a backflip ( the elite there is from Basque descent, he argues). You are left to wonder how he explains the sharply different progress of the same culture in Taiwan and Continental China, in the former East or West Germany , in North and South Korea or in Cuba and Miami, to mention just a few cases. His main argument is that if you are Catholic and brown, you better change your religion, your values and if possible, the color of your skin - but don't ever dare to live in the United States and challenge his culture!Don't waste your time with his book.

�Gracias, Señor Harrison� for a Groundbreaking Book
When I first read The Pan-American Dream I lamented, "Darn, he beat me toit!" It had been my intention to explore the cultural roots of LatinAmerica's underdevelopment by building on the classic works of Salvador deMadariaga, José Luis Borges (both of whom were close to my father), FredoArias de la Canal (my father), Robert Putnam, Octavio Paz, Luis Pazos, JoséOrtega y Gasset, Tocqueville, Domingo Sarmiento and, more recently, GeorgeBorjas (who was my professor). It just goes to show how few have written onthe subject.

Harrison has written an excellent and ground-breaking book,and rightly does not mince his words. Those of us who have attempted toanswer the question of why Latin America is firmly in the Third Worldrealize how perceptive is the idea to link development squarely to culture.Many Latin American intellectuals, as Harrison points out, have attemptedto do the same, as have, more controversially, some Americans such asGeorge Grayson and, more recently, David Landes. Harrison's and Grayson'sarguments are obvious to most Latin Americans, but it seems to be mostunpopular with the American academic Left, as well as with some populistLatin Americans who want to perpetuate the victim myth.

Harrison shouldbe awarded a medal by those of us proud Latins who want to fix the problemsplaguing the noble countries of Latin America. He is playing the role of apsychotherapist, making Latin Americans see that the first step in fixing aproblem is admitting it is there. Harrison's opponents in the leftist U.S.academic circles are doing a disservice to those of us attempting to buildsensible, normal, businesslike and even friendly U.S.-Latin Americanrelations. Fanning and encouraging the "victim" complex in Latin Americansdoes not augur well for such relations. Worse, it plunges the region intoan orgy of self-destruction, since detrimental left-wing, protectionist andpopulist policies are justified with this fantasy of "victim" nationalism.Interestingly, Latins in the end do not respect those Americans or Britsthat pander to their self-victimization, just as an obnoxious andrebellious teenager does not respect passive and apologetic parents. Justask Argentine president Carlos Menem, who lovingly called Margaret Thatcher"the mother of Argentine democracy" (Russians for that matter are thesame-Ronald Reagan is the most popular U.S. president inRussia).

Harrison's repeated association of Latin America's problems to"Catholic-Iberian" culture is the one small shortcoming of the book. Onewonders what would have become of Latin America had it been conqueredinstead by Catalan settlers (whose parliament, founded in 1283, precedesWestminster by 12 years), or perhaps by those vestiges of Spain's moreliberal tradition (the king-vetoing fueros) suffocated by Ferdinand ofAragon in the late 1400s. Those were also Catholic, and also Iberian.Moreover, contrary to what Max Weber would point out, there are glaringexamples of backward Protestant cultures (Guyana, Suriname, Jamaica) and,conversely, of modern Catholic ones (the Czechs, who are, according toBorjas's research, the most successful European immigrants in the U.S.).The stubborn sense of justice and iron principles of the Irish seemopposite to what Harrison calls the "flexible ethical code" of the Latin.Yet they are also Catholic. Perhaps then, it is not so much a"Catholic-Iberian" culture, but simply "Iberian," or even an"un-representative minority of militaristic Iberians dispatched byMachiavellian Ferdinand and then Austrian dynastic overlords to conquer theAmericas."

Aside from that, Harrison's stab at the cultural roots ofLatin America's history of self-destruction and irresponsibility is righton target, and he should be commended for that largely thankless effort.And those of us preoccupied in putting Latin America's worst days behind itshould say, "Gracias, Señor Harrison." A prominent intellectual named NinaYomerowska caused the same necessary shock therapy when she observed thatthe main cultural weaknesses of the Mexican are "irresponsibility,indolence and immorality," and of the Spaniard, "envy, soberbia [intensearrogance] and egoism." Indeed, Harrison's book may be pillaged by theirrepressible Left and by "poor little me" nationalists, but it is requiredreading at a class on culture and global management at the Harvard BusinessSchool.

One interesting point was what Harrison calls his "trauma theoryof cultural change," and its implications for international relations. Thatis one point Harrison should continue to dwell in. I may add that SigmundFreud discovered something similar when he noticed that children that weresuddenly frightened by an animal, began to imitate that animal. He calledit a "totemic reaction." Harrison rightly observed that countries imitate aforeign aggressor that humiliated them. Maybe that is why Latin Americanshave not imitated the United States more broadly-precisely because the U.S.has been, in the words of former Costa Rican president and Nobel Prizelaureate Oscar Arias, "the only benevolent empire in history.

Excellent book.The best I've read comparing the cultures
Perfect book if you want to understand the route of Latin American culture, esp. if you are a businessperson doing business in Latin America.

I have not seen a better book explaining Latin America's sourceof cultural values as they relate to lack of economic and socialgrowth.

BUY IT. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from American Decades: Primary Sources, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 1687 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.American Decades Primary Sources provides fresh insight into the decade's most important events, people, and issues. Entries representing a diversity of views that provide insight into the seminal issues, themes, movements and events from the decade. Also included are concise contextual information, notes about the author and further resources. American Decades Primary Sources includes chapters on the arts, medicine and health, media, education, world events, religion, government and politics, lifestyles and social trends, law and justice, religion, business and the economy, and sports. Included to provide unique perspectives and a wealth of understanding are first hand accounts that include oral histories, songs, speeches, advertisements, TV, play and movie scripts, letters, laws, legal decisions, newspaper articles, cartoonsand recipes. ... Read more

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Big Macs, chickens and cut flowers are commodities beginning to dominate the global agro-food system. Using case studies from the US, Britain, India, South Africa, New Zealand and Latin America, Globalising Food addresses the key themes that are transforming the character of the traditional agricultural communities, ranging from multinational food corporations and World Bank policies, to regulation of pollution and labor relations. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (3)

Biased, sexist, missing much data
This book fails in many ways.My mother worked for Technicolor from '43 to her death in 1963, and was deeply involved in all the pre-strike conflict and voting, and was injured in the picketing.As a child, I accompanied her to many meetings of the AFL's IATSE Local 683 (the "Lab local") because as a widow, she could not afford a babysitter, and I wanted to attend.

Women are virtually absent from this book, despite them being major players.When union members were drafted, the government ordered all defense plants and studios to hire women, who had always been banned by the AFL craft unions.I personally knew a dozen or so, just from Technicolor.The book mentions only one female union member, and then only in passing.

When GIs returned, they found their old jobs filled mainly by women, and they were especially bitter, and this showed in violence against women union members during the '45-'48 strikes.

The real working conditions during the war, such as 48-hour + overtime weeks, 2 weeks days, 2 weeks swing shift, 2 weeks nights -- for years -- were absolutely grueling.The authors sneer at the movie studios and plants like Technicolor as important to the war effort only for propaganda -- not true.Classified battle films and processing were critical to parts of the war effort, including aerial surveillance, tactical and strategic analysis both in Europe and the Pacific, and so on.My mother would come home and throw up, unable to sleep, after watching the classified films of the Marine flamethrowers in the Pacific -- in Technicolor.

The book's theory was that the mobs and studios conspired with the government's explicit help to destroy "local union autonomy."The criminal activitiies of the leadership of the striking (CSU) unions, including beating up and permanently paralyzing many of my mother's co-workers, setting fires that destroyed many buildings, stealing strike funds, etc. are excused as just radical excesses or mistakes.The role of the Communist Party and covert communist activity is acknowledged and praised.

This is undisguised propaganda, not history.Two important newspaper sources are not mentioned, despite using strike photos from one -- and mis-captioning them to implicate firemen as punishing strikers, for one of many instances.The sourcing is in general very weak, lacking in depth and scholarship.

Don't waste your time.

good raw material --- good stories ---- not great analysis
Untold and almost lost history of labor battles in Hollywood in the 30's and 40's.Good solid information, lots of facts, but not really strung together as well as one would like.It's the raw story of the Industry, and the way it used the Mob to keep out the Communists, while decent progressives got smeared, smashed, and squeezed out cause caught in middle. Which is already more analysis than the book offers....if you're willing to take the raw material and analyze for yourself, it's worth giving it a read.

Hollywood's Buried Labor History
This is the only book in print that tells the dramatic story of the Hollywood labor wars of the 30's and 40's--the mob takeover of IATSE, the rank and file who fought back, and the blacklisting of up to 1000 studio workers, making IATSE members the major victims of the Hollywood Blacklist.Buried history at it's best! ... Read more

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Taking an ethnographic approach to understanding urban violence, Enrique Desmond Arias examines the ongoing problems of crime and police corruption that have led to widespread misery and human rights violations in many of Latin America's new democracies. Employing participant observation and interview research in three favelas (shantytowns) in Rio de Janeiro over a nine-year period, Arias closely considers the social interactions and criminal networks that are at the heart of the challenges to democratic governance in urban Brazil.

Much of the violence is the result of highly organized, politically connected drug dealers feeding off of the global cocaine market. Rising crime prompts repressive police tactics, and corruption runs deep in state structures. The rich move to walled communities, and the poor are caught between the criminals and often corrupt officials. Arias argues that public policy change is not enough to stop the vicious cycle of crime and corruption. The challenge, he suggests, is to build new social networks committed to controlling violence locally. Arias also offers comparative insights that apply this analysis to other cities in Brazil and throughout Latin America. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Network collaboration principles revealed
Best book I've seen on the subject. Well researched and written.Includes personal tales of life in 3 favelas of Rio. I especially like the author's interest in the mechanisms permitting collaboration between local favela dwellers, rich citizens a few blocks away, drug traffickers, police and politicians. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (23)

Boring and poor language
Boring and poor language - sad when you have to do with an exciting story like this.

overview with no context provided
Peter Chapman recounts bits of information and makes summary statements with neither any supporting information or providing an overall context for the actions of the people running United Fruit, now known as Chiquita. Exploitation of workers to produce profits for a few is a part of US history. Then New England that financed United Fruit is the New England that had the first slaves in the US and after they killed off most of the indigenous people they had enslaved they brought they imported the first African slaves. Not much a leap from using slaves for New England commerce to using local laborers in Central and South America and the Caribbean. For that matte the treatment of the coal miners working for Peabody Coal or Carnegie Steel was much the same with the American military used to brutally suppress any attempts by the workers to organize including massacres on US soil and the use of company stores to make workers little more than indentured servants for life.

The workers on the banana plantations that suffered from cancer and death from the use of Bordeaux Mixture is not different than the mostly Hispanic workers on American farms today who have cancer rates that are double that of the rest of the population. Exposure to pesticides and herbicides is 100 times greater than it was just one generation ago.

Chapman makes many states about how the CIA did this or that but the CIA is the President's army and follows the directions of the executive branch of our government. The toppling of democratically elected governments in Guatemala, Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina, Venezuela, Columbia, El Salvador, Haiti, Bolivia, Peru, Panama, and Vietnam involved the US CIA and the US military but it was done with the approval of the sitting President of the US. American company executives and shareholders profit today through exploiting the people and resources of countries around the world and when the people try to resist, as in Nigeria with Shell Oil, or Venezuela or Bolivia, it is still US policy to send in the CIA or permit the hiring of mercenaries like Blackwater or if all else fails, sending in our own men and women in the military to support the profit taking by these corporations.

What is interesting is Chapman's ambivalence toward the people in these countries being exploited by American businessman. Chapman refers to Costa Rica's "welfare state" as though it was somehow wrong for a government to be working for the welfare, i.e. the well being, of its people instead of exploiting them - a most un-American approach. Costa Rica provides its people with a free education, has more doctors per capita than the USA, has social security for all it people, provides single payer medical care for all of its people, and the average Costa Rican in spite of living in a less affluent country than the US has a life expectancy that is only 1 year less than the average American. The difference is a country that is not run by its military and foreign corporate interests and shows that even in a relatively poor country the health and well being of its people overall is much better than in the USA where we have 30 million people without medical coverage and 40 million people going without enough to eat.

Chapman makes brief mention of how the Guatemalan coup of 1954 supposedly led to the Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961, and that this in turn led to Castro allowing the Soviet Union to attempt to place missiles in Cuba. This ignores history and the efforts of the USA government to shut down the country and restore a dictatorship in Cuba. The US government refused to support Cuba's efforts at self-determination by refusing to allow refinery equipment to be shipped to Cuba and Castro was forced to turn to the Soviet Union for assistance. This failed policy has continued for the last 60 years through both Republican and Democratic Party presidencies.

Chapman mentions the overthrow of Salvador Allende as the democratically elected president of Chile but then implicated IT&T while making no mention of the well documented role of the CIA and Henry Kissinger in proactively supporting the military takeover and the strong support the US government under Nixon and Reagan, continued to give to the repressive regime of General Pinochet.

Chapman even goes so far as to state "When President Carter stopped military aid to some Central American regimes the bigger trouble started". Chapman believes that not actively supporting the criminal activities of military dictators was the reason for the workers and indigenous people rebelling and by implication not continuing to fund the murderers for the governments and the elites of these countries was harmful to the people. We see the same actions happening today in Honduras where the families who monopolize all business in the country have supported a coup to remove a president who dared to push through legislation that would have raised the wage of Honduran workers by $1 a day. No wonder these elite families were so upset.

Reagan, whose people did a no longer secret deal for arms to keep the American hostages in Iran from being released prior to the elections, continued with his policy of using any means to achieve a desired end with the continued illegal sale of American weapons and aircraft parts to Iran in return for money to support an illegal war in Central America. Chapman casually states "The world learned of the exploits of Colonel Oliver North, the enterprising US officer assigned to organize the bizarre 'Iran-Conta' plan". Chapman fails to mention that Oliver North was committing treason on behalf of President Reagan and supplying arms and money to the Contras who were in turn smuggling drugs into the USA using planes controlled by the CIA. Oliver North was enterprising and doing exactly what Noriega was doing in Panama and Noriega is in a US jail for the rest of his life while North has become a born again pseudo-Christian with a talk show courtesy of Murdoch.

The mistake, beyond doing no original research in writing his book, is that Chapman looks at United Fruit as an aberration when it is really typical of how capitalism operates when there is no government of the people to oppose them. Just as the US courts looked the other way when United Fruit seized the property of ABC claiming a lack of jurisdiction, the US courts continue to ignore the abuses by American corporate business people when it occurs overseas in Nigeria, the Sudan, Burma, India, Columbia, Bolivia, by companies like Chevron, Shell, DOW Chemical, Exxon, Bechtel, Blackwater, Carlyle, Monsanto, and their ilk.

Inriguing look at monopoly
United Fruit had a monopoly on the banana for over 100 years.This book ties familiar names from US history into the company's history and offers a more cosmopolitan perspective to the import business.The fact that United Fruit virtually controlled all aspects of Central American politics and governance during their hey-day is never mentioned in history books.The company was deeply involved in fomenting revolutions and regime changes throughout Central America until the mid-1970's with the tacit approval of certain US agencies and the lobbying of well-known government appointees behind the scenes.The author ties events together and shows how ruthless monopolies can be when protecting their interests to the detriment of all other considerations.This is an intriguing behind the scenes look at globalization gone wild.

Excellent!
This is an excellent book to read about the banana industry, the men behind it, how the term "Banana Republic" came about, the development and marketing of bananas. I highly recommend it.

Banana Republics
It's an interesting insight to why the US is where it is today in South America. ... Read more

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A political examination of contemporary Mexico considers the complex forces that are shaping its future, from a billionaire businessman who donated millions to the ruling party to an intellectual who transformed locals into a guerrilla force. Tour.Amazon.com Review
This is an attempt to understand Mexico's steep descent intoturmoil, which happened rapidly after the uprising in Chiapas on NewYear's Day 1994.Following the assassinations of a presidentialcandidate and then the congressional leader, President Carlos Salinasde Gortari had barely left office when the peso collapsed. Pursued byallegations of corruption, Salinas then fled the country. Oppenheimer,a reporter for The Miami Herald, argues that the crisis is theresult of nothing grander than a turf war within a decrepit rulingparty and that the Chiapas uprising is not something new, justanother eruption of the Marxist intellectualism that has longflourished in Latin America. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (12)

Great read and insight...
I would like to recomend this book because it really captures the moment and when you have a doubt of the information provided you can look at the extensive resources section.

A must read...

Should be required reading
This book is so shocking, it left me hoping the author made it all up. It raises many important questions regarding the US relationship with out southern neighbor. A must read.

GOOD HISTORY, WELL RESEARCHED, FAST PACED READ
In Bordering on Chaos, Oppenheimer does a very good job of depicting the events and digging up the dirty that led to many of the most important events in mid-1990s Mexico, including the murder of the leading presidential candidate, the rise of the Zapatistas and the choice of Zedillo for president.

However, instead of pure history, we are presented with deep character development for the two main actors in this process, Zedillo himself (the president to be) and Subcomandante Marcos, the leader of the Zapatista movement.In this process, we learn of the political ploys adopted by the PRI, the almost monarchic party that led the country for most of the century.These include forays into education, health, and the most important social services.Another important area is the corruption going on at the top levels of the PRI, requiring, for example, that business people contribute a minimum of [several] million to participate in the government, or else be excluded, with all that it entailed.There is less than I would like to know on Carlos Salinas, the now disgraced but formerly darling leader.

Overall, a good history and a well written book.If you have an interest in Mexico, or in the crisis period of the mid-1990s, this may offer some of the pieces that build up a puzzle of it.

Facinating account
This is a great read for anyone wanting to know about Mexico during the 1990s.It's very indepth, at times it feels like maybe Oppenheimer doesn't have all the information to tell the story, but he sure tells a lot of it.It's also not overly biased, like many books about recent Mexican history. Oppenheimer does a great job of setting the scene, explaining who is who, and helping the reader get their arms around all the different factions that make for a volatile social environment in Mexico.I also read "Castro's Final Hour" which was informative, but not as good (especially since the "final hour" was somewhere in the early nineties, and now it's 2001).I'd love to read more of Oppenheimer.

Andresito has excellent contacts
Excellent book on recent Mexican history. ... Read more