Forgotten Continent

In Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul, Michael Reid laments that Latin America currently holds a marginal position in global consciousness, ignored if not utterly “forgotten,” just as it experiences what he sees as a remarkable recovery from the legacy of debt, drugs, and dictatorship. A reporter for the British magazine The Economist, Reid has lived in and reported from Latin America for many years. He brings to the book much firsthand experience, numerous entertaining anecdotes, and not a few insights about the region. Early in the book he promises to “trespass” on the territory of academic specialists, “in a spirit of defiance of prohibition and in expectation of a clip round the ear from the proprietors of the territory infringed.” I do not believe any serious Latin Americanist assumes a territorial claim on analyses of the Latin American dilemma, and a book by an informed observer is most welcomed. Reid’s book offers something valuable to both specialists and the general reading public for whom it is largely intended.The early chapters of the book, in which Reid surveys Latin American history from the colonial period through the twentieth century, are probably of least interest to the readers of HAHR. He makes a few debatable assertions, such as that the Mexican Revolution had a greater impact on Latin America than the Cuban Revolution, exaggerating the nationalist and populist policies in vogue throughout the region in the past century as due directly to Mexico’s influence. But generally his claims are more tame and orthodox. Reid synthesizes the historical literature competently, albeit with a strong preference for Anglophone scholars, and offers a clear if somewhat conventional overview of several centuries of Latin American history. The heart of the book, and its real value, lies in subsequent chapters in which he surveys the contemporary scene in Latin America.The “battle for the soul” found in his subtitle is that between the visionary and modern free market advocates and statesmen and those shackled to a backward, stale, and indeed retrograde left-wing populism. Hugo Chavez is a favorite target, presented here almost as the caricature of the Latin American populist, squandering his country’s resources, a megalomaniac contemptuous of democracy and stubbornly swimming against the tide of history. Reid’s analysis is both glib and tendentious in these pages. Latin America’s populist and revolutionary traditions have never been just a question of opportunistic, demagogic leaders and misguided masses. Democracy was elusive in Latin America above all because of entrenched elite opposition. If democracy has become a permanent way of life in Latin America, both populists and revolutionaries have made their contributions to it. Reid runs through the accomplishments of those countries that have managed to combine vigorous market reforms and consolidated democracies, such as Chile, his hijo predilecto in the region, and contrasts them with the excesses of Chavez, Evo Morales, and others who cling stubbornly to Latin America’s old and very bad ways. The evidence he marshals to make his case is drawn largely from those who would agree with both his diagnosis of Latin America’s ills and his prescriptions to remedy them. (He shows a certain fondness for citing articles from the Economist itself.) He ignores the growing academic literature that, without advocating either the revolution or populism he so abhors, questions whether so-called neoliberal economic policies are really so utterly different from what we have seen before, or whether they have accomplished much more in terms of sustainable development than the previous national-capitalist model. Much empirical research indicates that this is not the case. Reid is not a doctrinaire conservative in the North American sense, and his assessments are reasonable. He recognizes the need for a state to regulate and assure competition as well as to ameliorate the appalling social inequalities in the region, which threaten both market economies and democracy. He rightly points out the remarkable resilience of Latin Americans in recovering from the terrible military dictatorships of the recent past, and their accomplishments in rebuilding democracies of some kind. He writes of Latin America with great empathy, intelligence, and insight. If Latin America’s proverbial “solitude” is somewhat overstated in his final chapter, he makes a strong case that the world should take notice of what he sees as the region’s “silent revolution,” though others, among them this reviewer, are a bit skeptical that we are witnessing a brave new world in Latin America. Such sanguine predictions have been made before and ultimately proved wrong

Ancient history · Art · Aside · Battle · Colonialism · Democracy · Dictatorship · Dilemma · Economic history · Latin Americans · Literature · Political science · Politics · Soul · History · International Relations in Latin America · Law · Philosophy