Simon Bolívar once inspired a continent to rise from serfdom and
throw off the shackles of Spanish rule. With lance and law book, he
and his fellow Liberators set the course for independence, freedom
and equality. ¡Viva South America! sets out to discover if that
dream lives on. Is it fair to describe a land as
'independent' while poverty still enslaves millions, where
violence lurks in the shadows and where lawlessness gnaws away at
progress? Did the Liberators fail? Or are leaders such as
Venezuela's Hugo Chávez and Bolivia's Evo Morales
resurrecting those long-ago ideals?Armed with a reporter's
notebook and an open mind, the author hits the road in search of
answers. Cutting a path along the highways and byways of the
continent, this book lifts the lid on the Liberators' legacies
and sniffs behind their modern-day statues.With the ghost of
Bolívar as guide, the quest takes the reader off the tourist trail
and into the weird and wonderful worlds of South American culture
and society. By stepping into people's homes and into
inmates' prison cells, by climbing on to dance floors and over
road blocks, Oliver Balch unearths untold stories from the front
line of South America's contemporary fight for freedom.
