"Open Veins Of Latin America," By Uruguayan Eduardo Galeano, Dead At 76

"In 1492, the natives discovered that they were Indians, that they lived in America, that they were naked, that sin existed, that owed obedience to a king and queen who lived in another world and to a God who lived in another sky and that that God had invented guilt and clothes and had ordered to be burned alive anyone who adored the sun and the moon and the earth and the rain."

Reflection On Columbus: Happy To Be An American; Pissed At The Process

http://paxonbothhouses.blogspot.com/2014/09/reflection-on-christopher-columbus.html

Open Veins of Latin America

Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent

by Eduardo Galeano

topics: History, Imperialism  places: Latin America
 filed: eBooks, Paperback, Translation

Paperback, 360 pages
ISBN: 0-85345-991-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-85345-991-0
Released: 1997
Also available as an e-book

Price: $20.00Quantity: 

eBook: $15.20 (EPUB & Mobi)

25th Anniversary Edition

Translated by Cedric Belfrage

New Introduction by Isabel Allende

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. This classic is now further honored by Isabel Allende’s inspiring introduction. Universally recognized as one of the most important writers of our time, Allende once again contributes her talents to literature, to political principles, and to enlightenment.

To publish Eduardo Galeano is to publish the enemy: the enemy of lies, indifference, above all of forgetfulness. Thanks to him our crimes will be remembered. His tenderness is devastating, his truthfulness, furious.

—John Berger

This book is a monument in our Latin American history. It allows us to learn history, and we have to build on this history.

—Hugo Chávez, as reported by the BBC

A superbly written, excellently translated, and powerfully persuasive expose which all students of Latin American and U.S. history must read.

—Choice, American Library Association

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. Galeano’s vision is unswerving, surgical and yet immensely generous and humane. This book, written more than thirty years ago, contains profound lessons for contemporary India. Eduardo Galeano ought to be a household name in this country.

—Arundhati Roy

Eduardo Galeano 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 Firetrilogy. Isabel Allende is the author of several bestselling titles including In the House of the Spirits, The Infinite Plan, and Paula.