Open Veins Of Latin America

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.

What Hacker News says

mlinharesJul 2026

> but my culture is too preoccupied with petty gossip of what others think and third world consumerism traps that prevent any kind of development

Your culture is the outcome of colonization, dictatorships propped up by first world powers, and being ruled by the same families that came with the Spanish 500 years ago.

Might be worth it to also invest time in reading another book, like "Open Veins of Latin America", to understand the realities of what happened to Latin American countries in general, so you stop repeating stuff like that.

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rexpopApr 2024

> that wealth (in the form of raw resources) was completely useless and dormant without the labor to exploit it

Arguably, the bulk of the "raw resources" which have accumulated to US business interests came from eg Latin America, from which Europe and later America pulled rubber, silver, beef, copper, chocolate and a thousand others. Neither have we stopped; where do you think Nestlé's palm kernel oil comes from? Not the raw resources within our borders.

I recommend everyone read "No Wall They Can Build" and "Open Veins of Latin America".

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jussaying2Dec 2022

Along the same, er, vein, check out The Open Veins Of Latin America - it's a painstakingly well-researched and fiery book on the colonization and exploitation of Latin America for its resources, under the guise of "taming the primitives". It also documents the attempts of the US in sabotaging popular, labour-led/socialist movements, nearly always successful and often involving the use of violence, all in the name of "fostering democracy".

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famuvieJul 2020

The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, by Naomi Klein (2007)

Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, Eudardo Galeano (1971)

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rexpopJan 2020

I will not pretend that reading is easy. I cannot appreciate your difficulty. I am eager to read. I read voraciously. What number you've read in your life, I consume in a year. I should, perhaps, regard you as a marathon runner would regard a couch potato looking to get into the sport of running.

I have this to say: I will _never_ reach the bottom of books' wellspring of value. I have not, yet reached diminishing marginal returns. Every book I read makes the next one more valuable.

You don't, however, have to read as much as I do to gain the benefit. My whole life, every year has brought me a handful of life-altering, mind-blowing new books.

That being said, I have put down many bad ones. Do not be afraid to quit a boring book. There are too many to read. There are so many more out there. Skip to the next one.

> I assume that the best part of the best books will surface in daily conversations.

I don't.

> I even find myself reading the comments and not reading the article most of the time.

Me, too. Books are way different, however. Articles too often, in my experience, couch the _news_ in many paragraphs of exposition, and background context. I skim them looking for the _novel_ information. Not so, with books, which I read in order to _augment_ my contextual, background understanding.

Time spent absorbed in a book allows for deeper re-wiring of one's basic precepts. An article may help you navigate your current mental models with agility, but only a book offers us the substantial choice of retaining or replacing them.

> Life-transforming ideas have always come to me through books. -- bell hooks

Novels, likewise, afford a world-altering subsumption of reality. Our imaginations are massively powerful--or else, to put it another way, our connection to material reality is tenuous, and can be all-too-easily shifted to project ourselves into fantasies. A visit to alternate realms--even as mundane as contemporary fiction set in a different town--grants us opportunities that short forms don't. I have only rarely been swept away by a reddit comment, and felt myself to have visited another place. (One example might be the roadside in "Today You, Tomorrow me.")

I think you're reading in the wrong genre. There are dozens, and truly their boundaries are fluid, but self-help is perhaps the most vapid.

You are missing out.

I would recommend Bujold's "The Curse of Chalion" as a fantastic, mature novel with fantasy elements, or Stephenson's "Snowcrash" for a colorful adventure not without gravitas. If you're trying to gain non-fiction information, I would recommend Galeano's "Open Veins of Latin America," CrimethInc's "No Wall They Can Build," or Ehrenreich's "Dancing in the Streets."

In the realm of pure intellectual pursuit, Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" will not disappoint.

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coldteaOct 2019

I'd also recommend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Veins_of_Latin_America

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