Descripciones mejoradas de Syndetics:

La dolorosa hipótesis que propone este libro consiste en que el patente fracaso de América Latina es consecuencia,en parte de su partircular historia.

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Publishers Weekly Review

Montaner, a Cuban-born novelist (1898: La Trama [1898: The Plot], Planeta, 1997) and essayist who writes mainly about the Cuban Revolution, has published a thoughtful work about why Latin America's governments and economies have been, for the most part, unsuccessful. According to the author, during colonization the Spanish transferred certain traits to the emerging societies in the New World, including an aversion to commerce and finance and a lack of interest in invention and innovation. The tendency to define wealth in terms of land holding, which contributed to the stratification of Latin American societies, is also a Spanish legacy. In terms of the government, the excessive centralization of the Spanish Crown during the colonial period led to a general distrust of government that persists to this day. Montaner reinforces his argument by comparing institutions and events that developed in the Spanish colonies (e.g., slavery and wars of independence) with their counterparts in English-speaking colonies. This last feature will interest North American readers. Montaner places little emphasis, though, on how Spanish America, by virtue of its vast geography and complex indigenous cultures, managed to modify many Spanish ideas and institutions. Recommended for academic and large public libraries, as well as bookstores with a strong history section.Sonia Merubia, Univ. of Texas Lib., Austin (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved