About this item
Highlights
- An epicintellectual history of Latin America by one of the region's most prominentthinkersInhis first book to appear in English since Mexico: Biography in Power, awork which the Wall Street Journal calls "the standard history ofpostcolonial Mexico," prize-winning author Enrique Krauzeilluminates the evolution of political, social, and philosophical discourses inLatin America.
- Author(s): Enrique Krauze
- 560 Pages
- Biography + Autobiography, Historical
Description
About the Book
An epicintellectual history of Latin America by one of the region s most prominentthinkersInhis first book to appear in English since Mexico: Biography in Power, awork which the Wall Street Journal calls the standard history ofpostcolonial Mexico, prize-winning author Enrique Krauzeilluminates the evolution of political, social, and philosophical discourses inLatin America. With echoes of Richard Hofstadter and Edmund Wilson, Krauze explores the Latin American intellectual traditionby deftly animating its decisive figures, from Octavio Paz to Che Guevara, Jose Vasconcelos toHugo Chavez, and inscribing them upon a vivid landscape of patriotism, opportunism, morality, and avarice and of love, honor, loyalty, and identity. Redeemersdelivers an unparalleled explication of the roots of ideology and action inLatin America today."
Book Synopsis
An epicintellectual history of Latin America by one of the region's most prominentthinkersInhis first book to appear in English since Mexico: Biography in Power, awork which the Wall Street Journal calls "the standard history ofpostcolonial Mexico," prize-winning author Enrique Krauzeilluminates the evolution of political, social, and philosophical discourses inLatin America. With echoes of Richard Hofstadter and Edmund Wilson, Krauze explores the Latin American intellectual traditionby deftly animating its decisive figures, from Octavio Paz to Che Guevara, José Vasconcelos toHugo Chávez, and inscribing them upon a vivid landscape of patriotism, opportunism, morality, and avarice--and of love, honor, loyalty, and identity. Redeemersdelivers an unparalleled explication of the roots of ideology and action inLatin America today.
From the Back Cover
In Redeemers, acclaimed historian Enrique Krauze presents the major ideas that have formed the modern Latin American political mind during the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries--and looks closely at how these ideas were expressed in the lives of influential revolutionaries, thinkers, poets, and novelists. Here are the Cuban José Martí; the Argentines Che Guevara and Evita Perón; political thinkers like Mexico's José Vasconcelos; and the writers José Enrique Rodó, Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, and Gabriel García Márquez. Redeemers also highlights Mexico's Samuel Ruiz and Subcomandante Marcos, as well as Venezuela's president Hugo Chávez, and their influence on contemporary Latin America.
In his brilliant, deeply researched history, Enrique Krauze uses the range of these extraordinary lives to illuminate the struggle that has defined Latin American history: an ever-precarious balance between the ideal of democracy and the temptation of political messianism.
Review Quotes
"An ambitious attempt to trace the interaction of ideas and power in Hispanic America." -- The Wall Street Journal
"Krauze is marked by a rare and attractive gift for noticing the several ways that, under the bright sun of the imagination, and kingdom of politics and the kingdom of literature sometimes merge." -- Paul Berman, The New York Times Book Review
"Erudite and wise. . . . A magisterial history of the ideas, books and politics that shaped modern Latin America, from 19th-century liberalism to revolutionary commitments and back again towards modern, more democratic versions of liberal thought." -- The Financial Times
"An engaging mixture of biography and historical currents in the style of Isaiah Berlin or Edmund Wilson, thus allowing lay readers to follow what can sometimes be a dizzying succession of revolutions, doctrine and caudillos." -- Kirkus Reviews
"Krauze illuminates Latin American thought and politics in a vibrant and invaluable blend of biography and analysis. . . . Redeemers provides discerning and much-needed insight into our dynamic neighbors." -- Booklist
"Highly readable. . . . An important book." -- The Tuscon Citizen
"Krauze attempts to weave together the disparate threads of all the feuding orthodoxies through mini-biographies of 12 leaders and thinkers. Krauze, perhaps Mexico's most widely respected intellectual, is uniquely suited to the task, and the resulting tapestry is both persuasive and evocative." -- Publishers Weekly
"An engaging survey of the ideas and quasi-religious convictions that have powered modern Latin America's consequential political movements." -- The Daily
"Krauze is, without a doubt, one of the most renowned and important intellectuals in Mexico. . . . He has developed a prose style of expressive clarity and metaphoric restraint that has enormous impact. His books read like novels: the greatest possible achievement for a historian of ideas." -- The Nation
"Redeemers is a fundamental work for our time. . . . All the chapters are written with fluid movement, intelligent precision, and felicitous language. You read them with the expectation and excitement offered by the best novels." -- Mario Vargas Llosa, El País