Real World Latin America (1st edition)

Edited by Alejandro Reuss, Chris Sturr, and the Dollars & Sense Collective

Real World Latin America brings together the best recent reporting on the region from Dollars & Sense and NACLA Report on the Americas. This timely anthology offers diverse perspectives on the profound economic and social transformations taking place in Latin America in recent years.

In its well-researched and accessible articles, Real World Latin America provides a thorough introduction to Latin American economic policies, the region's changing place in the global economy, the dilemmas of development and sustainability, democracy and dictatorship, labor relations, migration, relations with the United States, and resistance and rebellion.

Praise for Real World Latin America:

The editors of Dollars & Sense and NACLA Report on the Americas have done us a great service. This is a timely collection of essays, sophisticated yet highly readable analysis of the most pressing issues facing Latin America today. The book is ideally suited for undergraduate courses on the region, and will be of interest to a broader readership as well. —Eric Hershberg, Director, Center for Latin American and Latino Studies, American University

Real World Latin America is an ideal survey text for introductory Latin American studies courses. It covers the vital issues of the region, including democratization, the rise of the Left, economic reform, US-Latin American relations, and migration and its political consequences. Moreover, the volume's breadth takes into account the region's vast diversity and deep-seated inequalities along the lines of class, race/ethnicity, and gender. The two well-respected publications from which the collection is drawn, Dollars & Sense and the NACLA Report on the Americas, offer critical perspectives informed by their long-standing expertise in the region. —Elisabeth Jay Friedman, Chair, Latin American Studies, University of San Francisco

Latin America is on the move, finding its way towards new approaches to economic development with social justice. Real World Latin America provides a compelling picture of change, political conflict, and the real stakes involved in the region. It is a valuable guide to the contemporary history of the present, inviting readers to stay tuned for more to come. —Michael A Cohen, Director of the International Affairs Program, New School University

Real World Latin America is an excellent collection of articles, providing students with insightful critiques of Latin American political, economic and social issues. As Latin America continues to undergo dramatic changes and as the relations between the region and the United States continue to be of great importance, students need to hear alternative voices. This collection provides those voices, presenting the issues in an accessible and engaging manner. Real World Latin America will be extremely valuable for students in Latin American studies courses, but also for students with broad interests in international affairs. —Arthur MacEwan, Professor of Economics (Emeritus), University of Massachusetts, Boston

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section 1: Latin America in the Global Economy

• Chapter 1: The Region Under Neoliberalism
  • Latin America in the New Global Capitalism
    William I. Robinson
  • The Colombia FTA: Only Corporations Win
    Matias Vernengo
  • Mexico: Prosperous, Competitive, Undergoing an Economic Renaissance?
    James M. Cypher
  • Chile: A Schizophrenic Country
    Ximena de la Barra
  • Disaster Capitalism to the Rescue: The International Community and Haiti After the Earthquake
    Alex Dupuy
    
    
• Chapter 2: The Region Emerging from Neoliberalism?
  • Beyond the World Creditors' Cartel
    Dariush Sokolov
  • What Accounts for South America's Resilience?
    Oscar Ugarteche
  • Brazil's "Big Push"
    James M. Cypher
  • China and India: Latin America's New Friends From the East
    He Li
    
    

Section 2: Development and Sustainability

• Chapter 3: Development and Extraction
  • Amid Gas, Where Is the Revolution?
    Bret Gustafson
  • Commodifying Water in Times of Global Warming
    Astrid Bredholt Stensrud
  • The Global Pesticide Pushers in Latin America
    Jimmy Langman
  • Is Biotechnology the Answer? The Evidence from NAFTA
    Gerardo Otero and Gabriela Pechlaner
    
    
• Chapter 4: Development and Conservation
  • Keep It in the Ground
    Elissa Dennis
  • Carbon-Offset Conservation in the Choco
    Autumn Spanne
  • A Mining Ban in El Salvador?
    Emily Achtenberg
  • A Most-People's Climate Movement?
    Daniel Aldana Cohen
    

Section Three: Power and Conflict

• Chapter 5: Latin America and the United States
  • Beyond Supply and Demand: Obama's Drug Wars in Latin America
    Suzanna Reiss
  • Retreat to Colombia: The Pentagon Adapts Its Latin America Strategy
    John Lindsay-Poland
  • The Costs of the Cuban Embargo
    Margot Pepper
  • Haiti's Fault Lines: Made in the U.S.A.
    Marie Kennedy and Chris Tilly
  • 'A New Chapter of Engagement': Obama and the Honduran Coup
    Alexander Main
    
    
• Chapter 6: Democracy, Dictatorship, and Armed Force
  • Contested Development: The Geopolitics of Bolivia's TIPNIS Conflict
    Emily Achtenberg
  • Palm Oil Oppression
    Sarah Blaskey and Jesse Chapman
  • Drugs and Business: Central America Faces Another Round of Violence
    Annie Bird
  • The Other Colombia: Economics and Politics of Depropriation
    Patricia Rodriguez
  • The 2009 Coup and the Struggle for Democracy in Honduras
    Rodolfo Pastor Fasquelle
    

Section 4: Labor in the Americas

• Chapter 7: Wage Labor and Capital
  • The Assault on Labor in Cananea, Mexico
    Anne Fischel and Lin Nelson
  • Refusing to Hear: Press Coverage of the Chilean Miners
    Steven S. Volk
  • After Sweatshops? Apparel Politics in the Circum-Caribbean
    Marion Werner and Jennifer Bair
  • Florida Tomato Pickers Demand "Fair Food"
    Dan Schneider
  • A House Still Divided: Mexico's Labor Movement
    Dan La Botz
  • Solidarity: The Only Effective Labor Policy
    Dan La Botz
    
    
• Chapter 8: Migrations
  • Immigrants and the Labor Market
    Esther Cervantes
  • Follow the Money: The University of Arizona's Border War
    Todd Miller
  • The Border: Funneling Migrants to Their Doom
    Oscar Martinez
  • Migrante Mobilization in El Nuevo South
    Chris Zepeda-Millan
  • Made in Argentina: Bolivian Migrant Workers Fight Neoliberal Fashion
    Marie Trigona
  • The Right to Stay Home
    David Bacon
    
    

Section 5: Rethinking Resistance and Revolution

• Chapter 9: Legacies of 20th Century Resistance and Revolution
  • Mexico's Unspent Revolutionary Legacies: An Interview With Historian Alan Knight
    Fred Rosen
  • Changes From Below: New Dynamics, Spaces, and Attitudes in Cuban Society
    Katrin Hansing
  • Et Tu, Daniel? The Sandinista Revolution Betrayed
    Roger Burbach
  • Fifty Years of Caribbean Independence: Real and Imagined
    Kevin Edmonds
  • The Politics of Memory and the Memory of Politics
    Steven S. Volk
    
    
• Chapter 10: Resistance and Revolution in the 21st Century?
  • Horizontalism: From Argentina to Wall Street
    Marina Sitrin
  • The Communal State: Communal Councils, Communes, and Workplace Democracy
    Dario Azzellini
  • Chavez in the Americas
    Stephanie Pearce
  • The Promise Besieged: Participation and Autonomy in Cuba
    Armando Chaguaceda
  • Hope and Exhaustion at the Hotel BAUEN
    Elissa Dennis
  • Monseñor Romero's Resurrection: Transnational Salvadoran Organizing
    Hector Perla, Jr.
  • A New Politics for a New Chile
    Joshua Frens-String
  • A New Indigenous-Left in Ecuador?
    Jeffery R. Weber