Showing titles in South America

In this compelling new book, relying on original reporting from the most dangerous corners of Rio to the halls of power in Washington, DC, Dave Zirin examines how sports and politics are colliding in remarkable fashion in Brazil, opening up an international conversation on the culture, economics, and politics of sports.

Previous accounts of the fall of the Inca empire have played up the importance of the events of one violent day in November 1532 at the highland Andean town of Cajamarca. To some, the "Cajamarca miracle" - in which Francisco Pizarro and a small contingent of Spaniards captured an Inca who led an army numbering in the tens of thousands - demonstrated the intervention of divine providence. To others, the outcome was simply the result of European technological and immunological superiority.

In 1979 the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith withdrew Hans Kung's missio canonica. Pope Paul VI approved the censure saying, "We are obligated to declare that in his writings he fell short of integrity and the truth of the Catholic faith." Through a 1980 agreement with the Vatican, Kung is now permitted to teach, but only under secular auspices. In this acclaimed Modern Library Chronicle, Kung examines the Catholic Church through its many reformations, focusing on the people and events...

As Russian forces closed in on Berlin and Hitler’s premiership drew to a close, many Nazi officials fled Germany. In this startling, meticulously researched account, acclaimed journalist Uki Goñi unravels the complex network that led them to Argentina. Relying on international support—in Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Italy—and the enthusiasm of the Vatican and President Juan Perón, Goñi shows how this ratline allowed Adolf Eichmann—the architect of the Final Solution—Josef Mengele, Eric Priebke, and many more, into the country.

After a long pre-history, the actual Cuban revolutionary war itself only lasted, incredibly, a little more than two years, from Dec 2, 1956, to January 1, 1959 - from the disastrous first battle, in which three-quarters of the expeditionary force of 82 revolutionaries that traveled to Cuba on the Granma were killed, to total victory at the beginning of January 1959. And there is no better account of the war than this little book by guerilla leader Che Guevara.

When the San José mine collapsed outside of Copiapó, Chile, in August 2010, it trapped thirty-three miners beneath thousands of feet of rock for a record-breaking sixty-nine days. After the disaster, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Héctor Tobar received exclusive access to the miners and their tales, and in Deep Down Dark, he brings them to haunting, visceral life. We learn what it was like to be imprisoned inside a mountain, understand the horror of being slowly consumed by hunger, and experience the awe of working in such a place-underground passages filled with danger.

At once an incredible adventure narrative and a penetrating biographical portrait, The River of Doubt is the true story of Theodore Roosevelt's harrowing exploration of one of the most dangerous rivers on earth.

Nas últimas semanas de 1889, a tripulação de um navio de guerra brasileira ancorado no porto de Colombo, capital do Ceilão (atual Sri Lanka), foi pega de surpresa pelas notícias alarmantes que chegavam do outro lado do mundo. O Brasil finalmente havia se tornado uma república. Com 67 anos de história, o império brasileiro, tido como a mais sólida, estável e duradoura experiência de governo na América Latina, desabou na manhã de 15 de novembro.

Wizard of the Upper Amazon is an extraordinary document of the life among a tribe of South American Indians at the beginning of the 20th century. For many listeners, the most compelling sections of the audiobook will be the descriptions of the use of Banisteriopsis caapi, the ayahuasca of the Amazon forests. This powerful hallucinogen has long been credited with the ability to transport human beings to realms of experience where telepathy and clairvoyance are commonplace. Manual Córdova, the narrator of these adventures, is well-known as a healer in Peru.

Default is the riveting story of Argentina's sovereign debt drama, which reveals the obscure inner workings of sovereign debt restructuring. This detailed case study describes the intense fight over the role of the IMF in Argentina's 2005 debt restructuring and the ensuing bitter decade of litigation with holdout creditors, demonstrating that outcomes for sovereign debt are determined by a complex interplay between financial markets, governments, the IMF, the press, and the courts.

Returning to his days as a reporter for El Espectador, Gabriel García Márquez chronicles, with consummate skill, the period in late 1990 when Colombian security forces mounted a nationwide manhunt for Pablo Escobar, the ruthless and elusive head of the Medellin cartel. Ten men and women were abducted by Escobar’s henchmen and used as bargaining chips against extradition to the United States. From the testimonies and diaries of the survivors, García Márquez reconstructs their bizarre ordeal with cinematic intensity, breathtaking language, and rigor.

By the time Christopher Columbus started setting east from the New World, he had explored San Salvador in the Bahamas (which he thought was Japan), Cuba (which he thought was China), and Hispaniola, the source of gold. As the common story goes, Columbus, en route back to Spain from his first journey, called in at Lisbon as a courtesy to brief the Portuguese King John II of his discovery of the New World.

Com linguagem fluente, acesso a documentação inédita e profundo rigor na pesquisa, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz e Heloisa Murgel Starling traçam um retrato de corpo inteiro do país, e mostram que o Brasil bem merecia uma nova história. Edição com novo pós-escrito das autoras. Aliando texto acessível e agradável, vasta documentação original e rica iconografia, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz e Heloisa Starling propõem uma nova (e pouco convencional) história do Brasil.

Killing Pablo is the inside story of the brutal rise and violent fall of Colombian cocaine cartel kingpin Pablo Escobar. Also from Bowden: the best selling Black Hawk Down.

Resultado de um longo trabalho de dez anos de pesquisa, 1808 narra a chegada da família real ao Rio de Janeiro, acossada pelas tropas do imperador francês Napoleão Bonaparte. Nunca algo semelhante havia acontecido na história de Portugal ou de qualquer outro país europeu. Em tempos de guerra, reis e rainhas haviam sido destronados ou obrigados a se refugiar em territórios alheios, mas nenhum deles foi tão longe quanto o príncipe regente Dom João VI, forçado a cruzar um oceano com toda a família real portuguesa para viver e reinar do outro lado do mundo.

Delving into the vibrant history and beautiful culture of the South American continent, inside this guide you’ll be taken on a journey into the past, uncovering a richly woven story that has played out through the ages. From the time of the great Inca Empire to the foundation of the modern-day countries we know so well, this book unveils the secrets of South America like never before.

Can forests think? Do dogs dream? In this astonishing book, Eduardo Kohn challenges the very foundations of anthropology, calling into question our central assumptions about what it means to be human - and thus distinct from all other life forms. Based on four years of fieldwork among the Runa of Ecuador's Upper Amazon, Kohn draws on his rich ethnography to explore how Amazonians interact with the many creatures that inhabit one of the world's most complex ecosystems.

On May 17, 1980, on the eve of Peru's presidential election, five masked men stormed a small town. They set election ballots ablaze and vanished, but not before planting a red hammer-and-sickle banner in the town square. The lone man arrested the next morning later swore allegiance to a group called Shining Path. Described by a US State Department cable as "cold-blooded and bestial", Shining Path orchestrated bombings, assassinations, and massacres across the cities, countryside, and jungles of Peru in a murderous campaign to seize power and impose a Communist government.

The Motorcycle Diaries is Che Guevara's diary of his journey to discover the continent of Latin America while still a medical student, setting out in 1952 on a vintage Norton motorcycle together with his friend Alberto Granado, a biochemist. It captures, arguably as much as any book ever written, the exuberance and joy of one person's youthful belief in the possibilities of humankind tending toward justice, peace, and happiness.

A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies is the story of the Spanish Dominican priest Bartolome de las Casas, who came to the Americas in the 16th century. Immediately he was struck by the inhumane ways in which the native peoples were treated by the European explorers and conquerors, Las Casas went on to be a leading opponent of slavery, torture, and genocide of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists.