Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul Audiobook (Free)

Latin America has often been condemned to failure. Neither poor more than enough to evoke Africa’s moral crusade nor as explosively flourishing as India and China, it has largely been overlooked by the West. Yet this vast continent, home to half a billion people, the world’s largest reserves of arable land, and 8.5 percent of global oil, is busily transforming its political and economic landscape.

This book argues that, instead of failing the test, Latin America’s efforts to develop fairer and more prosperous about Forgotten Continent: The Battle for Latin America’s Soul societies make it among the world’s most vigorous laboratories for capitalist democracy. In many countries-including Brazil, Chile, and Mexico-democratic market leaders are laying the foundations for quicker economic growth and even more inclusive politics, aswell as tackling deep-rooted problems of poverty, inequality, and social injustice. They encounter a new challenge from Hugo Chávez’s oil-fuelled populism, and much reaches stake. Failure will increase the circulation of medicines and illegal immigrants to the United States and Europe, jeopardize stability in an area rich in essential oil and other strategic goods, and threaten a number of the world’s many majestic natural environments.

Sketching on Michael Reid’s many years of reporting from inside Latin America’s cities, presidential palaces, and shantytowns, this publication provides a vivid, immediate, and up to date account of the dynamic continent and its struggle to compete inside a globalized world.