Product Description

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.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2545 in Books
• Published on: 2009-05-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Review
'Impassioned and lucid, Galeano is a knowledgeable guide through a shameful history of foreign exploitation' --Observer

Review
`A valuable study' - Sunday Business Post

About the Author
Eduardo Hughes Galeano (born September 3, 1940) is an Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. His books have been translated into many languages. He says: "I'm a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America above all and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia.' He is the author of Days and Nights of Love and War (winner of the 1978 Casa de las Americas Prize), The Book of Embraces, and the highly acclaimed Memory of Fire trilogy.

Customer Reviews

Indispensable
This book is quite simply a classic - indispensable. Ever since the conquest Latin America has been robbed, pillaged, exploited by the imperialist countries (first Spain, then England, now USA) - the very structure of the region reflects its reconstruction over 500 years as a source of much of the wealth that we in the core countries of the world system enjoy and take for granted. Moreover you'll discover things you didn't know, like the destruction of independent and progressive Paraguay in the 19th Century.
Brilliant.

for all this people with a sense of justice and beauty
open vains of latin america is a must be read book for all this people with a sense of justice and beauty,because this book who was wroten even before I was born still being a picture of the very forgoten but very loved latin america.In the hands of this master of simplisity, research, and black humor, Galeano, its almost everything you don't know about latinamerica and you want to know.

A powerful and emotional history book
This book can be irritating to quite a few people, such as conservative Brits who are proud of the British Empire and USA nationalists who think they are dominating the world because they happen to be cleverer.
Extremely naive interpretations of recent history are surprisingly widespread. We need more books like this one; it is packed with facts and figures but it is still easy to read. This is probably because Galeano's driving force is his passion for justice.