Inside South America

Fülszöveg

INSIDE SOUTH AMERICA
by JOHN GUNTHER
This, the eighth "Inside" book, a brand-new, full-scale "Inside" study of South America, is an eye-opening book about the ten South American republics. Twenty-five years ago, most of South America was, in Mr. Gunther's words, "frozen into a kind of derelict immobility . . . today nearly the entire continent is in a state of active flux, grasping for a future, with fundamental, yeasty impulses for change apparent almost everywhere." Country af ter country is on the edge of revolution.
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela—these are the ten coun-tries Mr. Gunther treats of in füll. His method has been to describe each, convey what it is really like through a series of national profiles, and outline the over-all problems—the gap between rieh and poor, land reform, population pressure, industrializaron, Ü.S. policy, Communism, church and army—as they manifest them-selves locally.
During more... Tovább

Fülszöveg

INSIDE SOUTH AMERICA
by JOHN GUNTHER
This, the eighth "Inside" book, a brand-new, full-scale "Inside" study of South America, is an eye-opening book about the ten South American republics. Twenty-five years ago, most of South America was, in Mr. Gunther's words, "frozen into a kind of derelict immobility . . . today nearly the entire continent is in a state of active flux, grasping for a future, with fundamental, yeasty impulses for change apparent almost everywhere." Country af ter country is on the edge of revolution.
Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela—these are the ten coun-tries Mr. Gunther treats of in füll. His method has been to describe each, convey what it is really like through a series of national profiles, and outline the over-all problems—the gap between rieh and poor, land reform, population pressure, industrializaron, Ü.S. policy, Communism, church and army—as they manifest them-selves locally.
During more than a year of research and travel Mr. Gunther, with character-istic élan, interviewed shopkeepers and intellectuals, peasants and landowners, agitators and officeholders . . . 722 people in all, including the presidents of the ten nations he surveyed. His incomparable gift for the instant evocation of a person-ality or an atmosphere was never more effective, whether he speaks of the piebald
( continued on back flap )
(continued frotn front flap)
mastodon which is Brazil, or Peru's triune magnificence of people, desert and moun-tains. At the same time, his objectivity carries a power of conviction no partisan polemics could achieve: that there are two possible points of view even about Juan Perón cornes as a salutary—and införma-tive—shock to the North American reader. And the ability to make complex political situations clear to the nonspecialist under-lies every chapter. To make these révolutions, revolts, "changes of personnel" intelligible and interesting requires the Gunther magie full-strength . . . and it is present everywhere.
Most of us who are reasonably well in-formed about Europe, Asia and even Africa are lamentably ignorant about the South American nations: their resem-blances, their différences, their recent ad-vances, their imminent prospects, their miseries, above ail their people and the challenges for the future. Inside South America is full of the juices and the zest of ebullient inquiry. And, as a masterpiece of analysis and organization, it offers a fascinating, intensive course in a vital subject.
JOHN GUNTHER has visited nearly every country in the world and has met at one time or another most of the world leaders. He enjoys the réputation of providing his readers with uniquely vivid and readable books which bridge the gap between history and contempo-rary events and make the leading prob-lems and personalities of world politics both human and familiar. Among Mr. Gunther's books, besides the eight "Inside" books, are Death Be Not Proud, a memoir of his son, Roosevelt in Retro-spect, A Fragment of Autobiography, The Lost City, a novel, and a number of books for young people. Vissza