Latin America: A critical view

My! Today I posted a retort by Tim Brown to Argentines accusing the US of being responsible for many of the woes of Latin America, and Tim for carrying on the Cold War. Then I picked up TLS (Times Literary Supplement, 1/18/02) and ran into a long review by Edward Luttwak of the three-volume Economic History of Twentieth Century Latin America, edited by Enrique Cárdenas, José Antonio Ocampo, and Rosemary Thorpe. The work (which I have not read) was sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank, which Luttwak in his opening salvo describes as useless. Then follows, not so much a book review, as the harshest criticism I have ever read of the Latin American modus vivendi et operandi. Luttwak, a respected scholar, has a ranch in Latin America, and he seems to be venting all the frustrations he has built up there. Tim's stuff pales in comparison. My guess is that the editor of the TLS has received loud and anguished protests from Latin Americans.

I assume that Enrique Cárdenas, a respected economist and former president of the University of the Americas, has read the review. He is a much-esteemed WAISer, and I invite him to tell us what hew thinks of the review.

Ronald Hilton - 2/27/02