Got myself Open Veins of Latin America for Christmas! Didn’t know it was reviewed by Hugo Chavez himself.
Hell yeah. This is a great book. I’ll never forget the part where he talks about the indigenous spanish-run slave-mines in Potosi Bolivia.
One thing that stuck out to me in the introduction to, was how he talks about how underdeveloped and depopulated Latin america is, like they have the natural resources to be as developed and densely populated as europe if these countries didn’t have imperialist-enforced mono-crop agriculture.
Oh yeah, I already knew about the Potosi mines in Bolivia, but one thing that I didn’t know about is the depopulation of most of Latin America (until you mentioned it just now lol). I’m well aware of the underdevelopment of Latin America.
But honestly? I’d call it maldevelopment because that’s exactly what it is. You have poorly designed and located buildings and architecture and facilities that aren’t run well or suffer from environmental problems or so on. It’s complicated, but it’s worse than underdevelopment; it’s outright maldevelopment.
Also, as an aside, I’ll probably get a few more books with the Amazon gift cards that I got right now (I know, it’s Amazon, and I would normally buy it from the publishers, but I might as well use them now that I got them and to educate myself). I’ll probably use the books I get to help with ProleWiki as well as other projects I’m doing.
I think I’ll get one or two more books on race and capitalism and their intersections since I feel that I should still explore that more. As a person that experienced racism in the past directly and saw others experience racism, I’d like to explore this more. And maybe one book from the Historical Materialism series published by Brill so I can learn more about the theoretical underpinnings of Marxism-Leninism.
