Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul
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 percent 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 countriesincluding Brazil, Chile and Mexicodemocratic 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, jeopardize 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 globalized world.
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Tags: America's, Battle, Continent, Forgotten, Latin, Soul
3 responses to Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul
Democracy – and Capitalism – in Latin America,
Michael Reid’s task in “Forgotten Continent” is onerous: in one book – a large one, to be sure – he wants to summarize two hundred years of a continent’s history, and to argue that Latin America is now ready for a major change: the embrace of Free Market Democracy in earnest for the first time.
The thesis of the book is simple: Latin America is torn between reformers – democrats who support free markets and democracy, and populists – who support neither. Reid argues that although the populists have considerable appeal in the region, the tide has turned against them. Unlike previous eras, the current embrace of democracy and capitalism – augmented with a great deal of redistribution policies – is here to last.
Surprisingly for a journalist, Reid’s history of Latin American, in three large chapters which take us from the 1820s to the 1990s, is cumbersome and hard to read. It is only when he gets to economic history that Reid, a correspondent for The Economist, hits his stride; A chapter on the development of the Washington Consensus is fascinating; I’ve read general economic accounts of 1997-1998 crisis (e.g. Paul Krugman’s The Return of Depression Economics) and a specific study of Argentina’s woes (Paul Bluestein’s And the Money Kept Rolling In (and Out) Wall Street, the IMF, and the Bankrupting of Argentina), but Reid offers a continent wide survey of the economic liberalization program which started in the 1980s, and offers a balanced evaluation; Unsurprisingly, Reid, like the journal for which he writes, thinks that the reforms were largely successful and positive, and that the responsibility for economic failures in the countries of Latin America lies more in insufficient reform of their economies and institutions and hardly if at all in the malign influence of Wall Street, the US, and the International Monetary Fund.
I was pleased with Reid’s decision to dedicate a chapter to Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan President. I originally bought “Forgotten Continent” to a large extent in order to learn more about the man and the phenomenon. Unfortunately Reid’s account, although informative about Chavez’s biography (coolest tid-bit: did you know that Chavez has his own TV show in which he dazzles Venezuelan audiences for five to seven hours every week?) but did not really enlighten me about the overall significance of “The Chavez Revolution”, for Venezuela, Latin America, or the world. Overall, Reid’s conclusion corresponds to the views I held before reading his book: Chavez’s Venezuela is less democratic and more corrupt than the very imperfect regimes that came before it. Chavez’s entire regime rests on the high price of oil; once that is gone, Chavez, and unfortunately, his country are in for a rude awakening (for a dissenting view, see Bart Jones’s biography Hugo!: The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution).
Reid’s focus is squarely on economics and politics. The chapter on the changing societies of Latin America is short and feels rudimentary. Reid touches briefly upon the region’s press (becoming more liberal and open), religion (becoming more diverse, with a decline of traditional Catholicism and the rise of Protestantism) and race relations (becoming more complicated, as the previously hushed reality of racism is brought to the surface, unleashing various forces and counter forces), but doesn’t do them justice.
The heart of the book is the description of the struggle to reform: not only the state and the economy, but the law enforcement and education systems. That improving schools is a difficult job comes as no surprise; Investing in education is relatively easy, but making sure that the investment is productive is much more difficult (see William Easterly’s The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics and The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good). The difficulties of reforming the law enforcement services owe much to the so-called “War on drugs”: US pressure on Latin American countries to destroy coca production causes unnecessary resentment, and is…
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|Refreshing, balanced interpretation of modern Latin America,
In “Forgotten Continent” Michael Reid offers a balanced, and in many ways refreshing, interpretation of modern Latin America. He eschews two common, competing views of the region, disagreeing with the leftist argument that Latin America has been a victim of “neoliberalism” and globalization, as well as the opposing thesis that Latin countries are doomed to dictatorship and poverty due to deeply rooted cultural impediments. Instead, Reid argues that Latin America has made tremendous strides–economically, politically, and socially–during the past quarter century. Despite his largely positive assessment, the author is under no illusion regarding the continued challenges facing the region. Its largest challenge comes from populism, best embodied by Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, and the continuing temptation of economic policies that have proved disastrous in the past.
While the text is at times dry (especially in sections heavy on economics), overall it offers a fresh take on a part of the world that does not receive much attention among the popular press. After reading the book, I could not help but to share some of Reid’s cautious optimism about the “forgotten continent.” This book can be enjoyed both by Latinamericanists and curious newcomers alike.
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|Very Impressive,
I just finished reading this book and while it is a bit pessamistic, the outlook for the continent is the same. I would love to respond to an earlier review saying that the author was “not academic”. I have a Ph.D. and teach Latin American Studies and found his footnotes to be very thorough and would not expect him to carry out interviews as they would be biased to his cause. However, he draws from previously published sources. I ask the previous reviewer what his experience of academia is?
Excellent! Read this book to know what is happening now in Latin America, especially for a concise overview of the Argentina debacle where I spend half the year.
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