Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix 1. Introduction 1 2. Latin America as a Place 9 3. Urban Bias 17 4. An Ideological Vacuum 25 5. Fragile Democracies 33 6. The Business of Being in Business 45 7. Environmental Degradation 55 8. Malls 65 9. Crime 73 10. The Poor 81 11. Struggling for Gender Equality 89 12. El Gringo 99 13. What to Paint? 109 14. Migration 119 15. Conclusion 127 List of Illustrations 135 A Note about Sources 137 Bibliography 139

Promotional Information

This is a remarkable (and unconventional) book. It conveys vivid portraits of contemporary Latin America with authenticity and immediacy. Based in large part on first-hand observation, it is insightful, compassionate, and well written. -- Peter H. Smith, University of California, San Diego This book is brilliant, provocative, highly original, and immensely learned--a series of shafts sunk into contemporary Latin American reality at different angles. Informative and fun to read, it is based on profound learning and extensive human experience in many countries. Writing from the point of view of an informed liberal conscience, but without sentimentality or self-hatred, Colburn maintains just the right balance of scholarly detachment and human engagement. He has something to teach both specialist and beginner. -- Mark Falcoff, American Enterprise Institute This book encompasses a broad range of issues that must be of concern to anyone interested in the present and future of Latin America. It presents a wealth of direct personal experience and observation with judicious addition of data and interpretations from others. New is the interpretation of events, knitting together many strands of analysis and argument, always linked to real people and places. It is an original and bold book for a social scientist to write. Colburn distances us from romanticized or ideologized views of Latin America, to see clearly and freshly what is going on. -- Norman Uphoff, Cornell University

About the Author

Forrest D. Colburn is the author of, among other works, The Vogue of Revolution in Poor Countries (Princeton).

Reviews

"The one book on Latin America that is essential reading this year... Skillfully interlacing the big picture with evocative and sympathetic portraits, [Colburn's] book is an elegantly succinct, if depressing, synopsis of the region's condition as it enters a new century."--Kenneth Maxwell, Foreign Affairs