Redeemers : ideas and power in Latin America / Enrique Krauze ; translated by Hank Heifetz and Natasha Wimmer

Includes bibliographical references (p. [491]-516) and index.

Latin America has been of vital importance to the United States almost since the birth of our nation, and the significance of this relationship has only increased in recent decades. But mutual understanding between these regions is lacking, even as Latin Americans are striving to promote the values of democracy in their native countries and beyond. Why has this process proved to be such a struggle, and what does the future of the region hold? 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, from early postcolonial authoritarian regimes to nineteenth-century Liberalism and Conservatism, and then the impact of Socialism and Marxism as well as nationalism and indigenism and the movement toward liberal democracy of recent years. Krauze looks closely at how these ideas have been expressed in the lives of influential revolutionaries, thinkers, poets, and novelists-figures whose lives were marked by a passionate involvement in history, power, and, for some, revolution, as well as a personal commitment to love, friendship, and family. Krauze's subjects come from across the continents. Here are the Cuban Jos Mart ; the Argentines Che Guevara and Evita Per n; the groundbreaking political thinkers Jos Vasconcelos of Mexico and Jos Carlos Mari tegui from Peru. Writers Jos Enrique Rod , Mario Vargas Llosa, Octavio Paz, and Gabriel Garc a M rquez reinforce the importance of imagination to inspire social change. Redeemers also highlights Mexico's Samuel Ruiz and Subcomandante Marcos and Venezuela's president Hugo Ch vez, and their influence on contemporary Latin America.