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

Title: Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
Author: Eduardo Galeano

Forward : Isabel Allende
ISBN: 81-88789-66-6
Binding: Paper
Date: October 2008
Publisher: Three Essays Collective
Number of Pages: 317
Price: INR 375/-

"The division of labor among nations is that some specialize in winning and others in losing" - thus Galeano begins this history of Latin America from Columbus to Castro and there is no doubt as to what side the continent is on. It is "a sub-America, a second-class America of nebulous identity," "at the service of others' needs," forced to work "as a menial" first for Britain and then for the U.S.A. while within itself the larger nations prey upon the smaller and the cities suck the rural areas. Latifundia - and also minifundia, their opposite - are "bottlenecks choking the growth of agriculture"; prosperity generated by mono-"plunder-cultures" (sugar, tin, cacao) vanishes when boom turns to bust; industrial development in the cities leads to greater urban poverty. What is urgently needed, in lieu of a "creative bourgeoisie" which these countries never had and never will, is an agrarian-based, Fanon-type revolution with a Castro as caudillo. Galeano affirms that Cuba (its dependence on Russia ignored) is using its sugar-culture "as an instrument of development"; the people work from "enthusiasm," not out of greed or hunger, since socialist societies do away with both as motives. Ideological propinquities becloud other assessments - of the British abolitionists or birth control campaigns - but one cannot say entirely nay; this horrific history, graphically and indignantly portrayed, is sadly how it was and is. (Kirkus Reviews)

A superbly written, excellently translated, and powerfully persuasive exposé which all students of Latin American and U.S. history must read. - ChoiceWell written and passionately stated, this is an intellectually honest and valuable study. - Library JournalA dazzling barrage of words and ideas. - History

Eduardo Galeano’s analysis of the effects and causes of capitalist underdevelopment in Latin America presents a clear, passionate account of almost 500 years of Latin American history. Galeano shows how foreign companies reaped huge profits through their operations in Latin America. He explains the politics of the Latin American bourgeoisies and their subservience to foreign powers, and how they interacted to create increasingly unequal capitalist societies in Latin America. 'Open Veins' continues to speak to generations of people who want to understand capitalism and exploitation in Latin America, and in the rest of the world. – ELIZABETH DORE, University of Southampton, author of Myths of Modernity: Peonage and Patriarchy in Nicaragua

He has more first-hand knowledge of Latin America than anybody else I can think of, and uses it to tell the world of the dreams and disillusions, the hopes and the failures of its people.…Galeano denounces exploitation with uncompromising ferocity, yet this book is almost poetic in its description of solidarity and human capacity for survival in the midst of the worst kind of despoilation. … This almost superhuman talent for storytelling is what makes 'Open Veins of Latin America' so easy to read. The book flows with the grace of a tale; it is impossible to put it down– ISABEL ALLENDE, from the Foreword