He details the atrocities of conquest that are so commonly focused upon but that never cease to shock and amaze: the enslavement of natives, the horrendously sharp decline in population, the insatiable thirst for riches that the Europeans harbored and the actions that they were willing to take in order to obtain wealth and glory. Galeano begins his saga of extortion with the European conquest of the Americas and the subsequent silver and gold rush. For Galeano, Latin America is poor precisely because it is so rich. The book, by Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano, follows the history of Latin America and the Caribbean through a perilous centuries-long struggle against poverty and those imperial powers whose unabashed exploitation ensure its steady existence. Almost forty years after its first publication, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent remains a relevant, if controversial, read.
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