Redeemers - Paperback

by Enrique Krauze (Author)

An epicintellectual history of Latin America by one of the region's most prominentthinkers

Inhis 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, Jos Vasconcelos toHugo Ch vez, 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.

Front Jacket

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.

--The Daily

Back Jacket

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.