I lived in Peru for five years, working as a writer, filmmaker, and anthropologist and have travelled extensively in South America, voyaging 4,500 miles from the northern tip of the Andes down to the southern tip of Patagonia, lived with a recently-contacted tribe in the Upper Amazon, visited Maoist Shining Path “liberated zones” in Peru and later made a number of documentaries on the Amazon as well as have written a number of books. Historically, culturally and biologically, South America remains one of the most interesting places on Earth.
I wrote...
Life and Death in the Andes: On the Trail of Bandits, Heroes, and Revolutionaries
By
Kim MacQuarrie
What is my book about?
The Andes Mountains are the world’s longest mountain chain, linking most of the countries in South America. Kim MacQuarrie takes us on a historical journey through this unique region, bringing fresh insight and contemporary connections to such fabled characters as Charles Darwin, Che Guevara, Pablo Escobar, Butch Cassidy, Thor Heyerdahl, and others. He describes living on the floating islands of Lake Titicaca. He introduces us to a Patagonian woman who is the last living speaker of her language.
We meet the woman who cared for the wounded Che Guevara just before he died, the police officer who captured cocaine king Pablo Escobar, the dancer who hid Shining Path guerrilla Abimael Guzman, and a man whose grandfather witnessed the death of Butch Cassidy.
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The Books I Picked & Why
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus
By
Charles C. Mann
Why this book?
If you want to start your study of South America and the Americas from the beginning (pre-European contact), this book does a great job of painting the big picture while at the same time puncturing the numerous myths that have been built up since 1491 about what the Americas were like prior to Columbus’ arrival. The next best thing to taking a time machine back there and flying over the area yourself.
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Columbus: The Four Voyages, 1492-1504
By
Laurence Bergreen
Why this book?
If you want to understand how both South America and the New World were “discovered” by Europeans, which had nearly the same effect on Native Americans that a meteor did on the dinosaurs, there’s no better way to understand it than to journey along on Columbus’ four voyages and be there when he and his crew set ashore. Columbus set foot on the northern part of South America on his third voyage, visiting the coast of what is now Venezuela. Bergreen’s book does an admirable job of introducing you to the man whose voyages would ultimately affect millions of people. This is the closest anyone will ever get to being on board as an entirely New World first hove into sight.
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Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent
By
Eduardo Galeano
Why this book?
A classic book that weaves together the history of how Columbus’ arrival in the Americas set the stage for the mining of the New World by European and other colonial powers--for its gold, silver, cacao, cotton, rubber, and coffee--and for how that impacted the people who lived there. A brilliant synthesis of the many forces that were unleashed by the joining of the Old World and the New.
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Bolivar: American Liberator
By
Marie Arana
Why this book?
In 1813, a rather obscure Venezuelan colonel began a military campaign that ultimately liberated six countries from Spanish rule, putting an end to Spanish control of much of South America that had begun with Pizarro’s conquest of the Inca Empire nearly three centuries earlier. Arana’s book tells in vivid detail how the revolutionary events unfolded and does an admirable job of bringing to life this talented and charismatic liberator.
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Forgotten Continent: A History of the New Latin America
By
Michael Reid
Why this book?
The author spent many years in Brazil and Peru, editing the Americas’ section of The Economist andknows the region well. He does a great job of providing the reader with a broad, contemporary view of modern-day Central and South America, weaving together their many historical threads. If you want an insider’s account of Latin America by someone who thoroughly knows the area, then this is the book for you.
