Product Description

Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor enough to evoke Africa's moral crusade, nor as explosively booming as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world's largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 per cent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape. This book argues that rather than failing the test, Latin America's efforts to build fairer and more prosperous societies make it one of the world's most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries, including Brazil, Chile and Mexico, democratic leaders are laying the foundations for faster economic growth and more inclusive politics, as well as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty, inequality and social injustice. They face a new challenge from Hugo Chávez's oil-fuelled populism, and much is at stake. Failure will increase the flow of drugs and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe, jeopardise stability in a region rich in oil and other strategic commodities, and threaten some of the world's most majestic natural environments. Drawing on Michael Reid's many years of reporting from inside Latin America's cities, presidential palaces and shantytowns, the book provides a vivid, immediate and informed account of a dynamic continent and its struggle to compete in a globalised world.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #266947 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 400 pages

Review
'Formidably well informed and written with exceptional clarity ... it combines all the strengths of journalistic experience with an explanatory energy rarely found in scholarly volumes.' --Professor James Dunkerley, Institute for the Study of the Americas, University of London

Review
'... Reid's scholarly, sweeping narrative... ties together disparate strands... [into] the hopeful, plausible conclusion of someone who clearly gives a damn.'

Review
'... Reid's unfailingly lively but hugely informative terms... offers a critique of the charisma cult and the belief in revolutionary miracle-working.'

Customer Reviews

Some issues
Written by one of the leading editors of Economist magazine, Michael Reid's Forgotten Continent exalts the relative triumph of the free market and democracy in Latin American. His thesis follows that these successes (Brazil, Colombia, Chile etc.) however are in danger from far left populism in the region: Chavez's Venezuela and Morales' Bolivia. Further, Reid argues that contrary to popular opinion, most of Latin America's existing problems are combination of firstly historical factors linked to the continent's colonial past, and secondly the inability of its recent governments to manage their economies sufficiently. Rejecting that the United States has had much input into the direction of Latin America in recent years, he departs from the writings authors like Uruguay's Eduardo Galeano who remain deeply sceptical of capitalism.
His interpretation is somewhat refreshing, but there are a number of issues with this book:
1) Reid's admiration of Colombia. On page 277 (hardback) Reid even goes so far as to say, "[Colombia's] generals tenaciously resist submitting their officers accused of human rights abuses to civilian courts. They argue, plausibly enough, that they are fighting an internal war - one on a scale that none of the dictatorships faced."

This is utterly shocking. Is the author really saying that the argument used to justify the barring of officers from being held accountable for human rights violations by the army is a plausible one?? If Reid indeed means this, then he is de facto admitting that he believes human rights violations by the army in Colombia are justifiable.
Perhaps he would do well to read some Human Rights Watch reports on this topic.

2) On page 304 Reid flatly states, "Alongside old-fashioned farm protectionism, concern over climate change is adding a new version: opposition to 'food miles'. Yet growing food efficiently is good for the environment; the idea that food should not be traded internationally is no more logical than opposition to 'manufacturing miles'."

Here Reid appears to twist words a little bit. Indeed, GROWING food efficiently may be good for the environment, but Reid fails to mention that 'food miles' also include exports such as beef, poultry, pork and so on which contributes to environmental degredation. His argument falls flat because on the previous page (page 303) he boasts that Brazil is one of the world's largest exporters of precisely these things! Reid cannot really believe what he is saying.

3) The question of sources. For a book about Latin America, surprisingly few Latin American sources are cited in the bibliography. There are a few (mostly journal articles) But the majority of the sources used are English; produced in Europe or the United States. I do not understand why Reid has not drawn more material from Latin American academics themselves. Further, Reid makes frequent reference to Samuel Huntington and the latter's more or less defunct 'clash of civilizations' theory. Whether he agrees with this idea or not is unclear, although he writes that Huntington believes Latin America to be a separate civilization.

4) On page 108 Reid states that the argument that the United States helped organise the military coup in Brazil which brought twenty years of dictatorship to that country is "[not] well founded." He does not explain exactly why it is not well founded, but merely describes the (very real) internal political situation at the time. Reid's assertion runs contrary to the ample evidence that exists illustrating that the United States did play a significant role in the coup.

These are the biggest issues I have with the book, although there are plenty more. It's nicely written and easy to read, and the view is somewhat refreshing. But Reid's biases are clearly visible and I cannot deem this an especially reliable book.

Why we should care about Latin America
As someone not very familiar with Latin America, I found Michael Reid's book was a brilliantly clear introduction to its history and politics that perfectly prepared me to follow his very detailed and convincing arguments (often enriched by stories of ordinary people's lives) about modern Latin American politics and economy - and what we can learn from the region's experiences.