I was very surprised to finally read a book that doesn't portray Latin America as a "victim" of the US or the Old World. I think these three authors intelligently challenge the populist ideologies and myths of the left and the right that have made so much damage all over the spanish speaking countries south of the USA. Having met many "perfect latin american idiots" in the past, I can see now why they are so enraged with the succes of this book. They are perfectly described and they don't look pretty. For anyone else, this book offers a fresh, sharp insight in to Latin American issues that until recently were considered property of marxist and nationalist leaning intellectuals. These writers are shooting straight to the heart and they make no apologies. Karen Helweg-Larson (Amazon Review)

The authors meticulously tie down and skewer a particular type of Latin American Idiot, a "progressive leftist" who thinks that the "free market" is "inhuman," etc. etc. But it's easy to see lots and lots of North American Idiots in this portrait, as well as handfuls of European Idiots. Noam Chomsky and Medea Benjamin fit right in, both wallowing in economic illiteracy. This book can be very profitably read by anyone in the world! The main point the authors come back to over and over again is the silly idea that wealth is "stolen," and not created. That is, if a foreman in Detroit makes 50 times as much as an Indian peasant in the Andes, well, that lousy American stole it from the peasant. Or he "exploited" him. We've all heard this nonsense many times before, mostly from people who are very comfortably off (Chomsky, for example, is a millionaire). But the simple fact is that the foreman in Detroit PRODUCES fifty times as much as that peasant in the Andes. Of course, the foreman is surrounded by competent workers and managers, and huge capital investment in machinery etc. BUT at the end of the day, you have to produce wealth in order to have it. Think about that. The United States is, according to the Idiots, the supreme exploiter in the world today. Yet the booming American economy, some $12 trillion strong, is two-thirds based on services! How can services possibly exploit starving peasants in the Andes? The new democratic government in Mexico is a pretty surprising example of the Idiots finally in retreat. With NAFTA in place, and foreign investment encouraged, the Mexican economy has managed to reach the threshold of a trillion dollars, with a per capita GDP of $10,000. That's doing marginally better than Thailand, and of course infinitely better than Cuba. Geoff Puterbaugh (Amazon Review)

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