Latin America After Neoliberalism: Turning the Tide in the 21st Century?LATIN AMERICA Latin America, the Spanish-speaking, Portuguese-speaking, and French-speaking countries (except Canada) of North America, South America, Central America, and the West Indies. AFTER NEOLIBERALISM ne·o·lib·er·al·ism n. A political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth. ne : TURNING THE TIDE IN THE 21ST CENTURY? Edited by Eric Hershberg and Fred Rosen Fred Rosen (May 25, 1930 - May 21, 2005) was a paediatrician and immunologist at Harvard Medical School, Harvard Center for Blood Research, and Harvard Children's Hospital. He was also an expert in antique furniture. The New Press, 2006 In the past decade, as the United States swung politically to the right, Latin America has run in the opposite direction, spawning social movements that have elected a slew of socialist and leftist-identified presidents. But it hasn't been an easy road, as revealed in this new anthology edited by Eric Hershberg and Fred Rosen, both of NACLA NACLA North American Congress on Latin America NACLA National Cooperation for Laboratory Accreditation NACLA North American Committee on Latin America , a think-tank on Latin America-U.S. relations. As the authors suggest, it's a good primer on how the region crawled out of dictatorship regimes and survived through neoliberal ne·o·lib·er·al·ism n. A political movement beginning in the 1960s that blends traditional liberal concerns for social justice with an emphasis on economic growth. ne economic policies. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Despite our cheers for the new left, the reality is grim. Between 1980 and 1995, about 94 million people in the region went into poverty. Today, the United States is funding political attacks on Venezuela's president Hugo Chavez, and with the war on terrorism Terrorist acts and the threat of Terrorism have occupied the various law enforcement agencies in the U.S. government for many years. The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, as amended by the usa patriot act , Washington officials are now referring to narcotraffickers as "narcoterrorists." The book's most engaging chapter is by Carlos M. Vilas, who argues that the new left's leaders are resurrecting the nation "as the symbolic reference point" and stripping the phrase "the people" of its working-class connotations. The volume is sorely lacking in-depth discussion of race or the social movements that changed the region. This is surprising in so far as we know that indigenous people were brutally massacred throughout the dictatorships and the 1980s, and that at least in Bolivia, these communities have overthrown two presidents and installed their own leaders. |
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