The Chile Reader makes available a rich variety of documents spanning more than five hundred years of Chilean history. Most of the selections are by Chileans; many have never before appeared in English. The history of Chile is rendered from diverse perspectives, including those of Mapuche Indians and Spanish colonists, peasants and aristocrats, feminists and military strongmen, entrepreneurs and workers, and priests and poets. Among the many selections are interviews, travel diaries, letters, diplomatic cables, cartoons, photographs, and song lyrics.Texts and images, each introduced by the editors, provide insights into the ways that Chile's unique geography has shaped its national identity, the country's unusually violent colonial history, and the stable but autocratic republic that emerged after independence from Spain. They shed light on Chile's role in the world economy, the social impact of economic modernization, and the enduring problems of deep inequality. The Reader also covers Chile's bold experiments with reform and revolution, its subsequent descent into one of Latin America's most ruthless Cold War dictatorships, and its much-admired transition to democracy and a market economy in the years since dictatorship.

My Alphabetasaurus is written and illustrated by the author and is aimed at younger readers with an interest in the Mesozoic Era, or Age of the Dinosaurs. The book deals only with land animals and does not cover marine reptiles, flying reptiles or mammals. In all, thirty dinosaurs are represented by illustration and descriptive text. The illustrations are hand-drawn in colour, based on information resourced from internet sites. The animals depicted are set out in alphabetical order with informative text, describing in general; where and when they lived, what they ate, their size and weight estimations and where possible how long they lived. Colour is of course largely guess-work as little skin has ever been found in the fossil record. The book describes in brief the formation of our planet and how dinosaurs evolved through the Triassic period, the Jurassic period and finally until the passing of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous period. In all the 186 million years of the Mesozoic era. At the time of writing there are records of well over eight hundred species of these magnificent animals. The thirty depicted in My Alphabetasaurus are but a small number, the aim of the book was however to represent one or more species for each letter of the alphabet. The book includes a glossary aimed at describing some of the common.

PRAISE FOR THE PREVIOUS EDITIONS: "Rare is the book in English that provides a general overview of Latin America and the Caribbean. Rarer still is the good, topical, and largely dispassionate book that contributes to a better understanding of the rest of the hemisphere. Peter Winn has managed to produce both."--"Miami Herald ""This magisterial work provides an accessible and engaging introduction to the complex tapestry of contemporary Latin America and the Caribbean."--Foreign Affairs "A clear, level-headed snapshot of a region in transition. . . . Winn is most interesting when he discusses the larger issues and to his credit he does this often."--Washington Post Book World "Balanced and wide-ranging. . . . After canvassing the legacies of the European conquerors, Winn examines issues of national identity and economic development. . . . Other discussions survey internal migration, the role of indigenous peoples, the complexity of race relations, and the treatment of women." --Publishers Weekly

Chile was the first major Latin American nation to carry out a complete neoliberal transformation. Its policies--encouraging foreign investment, privatizing public sector companies and services, lowering trade barriers, reducing the size of the state, and embracing the market as a regulator of both the economy and society--produced an economic boom that some have hailed as a "miracle" to be emulated by other Latin American countries. But how have Chile's millions of workers, whose hard labor and long hours have made the miracle possible, fared under this program? Through empirically grounded historical case studies, this volume examines the human underside of the Chilean economy over the past three decades, delineating the harsh inequities that persist in spite of growth, low inflation, and some decrease in poverty and unemployment.

Implemented in the 1970s at the point of the bayonet and in the shadow of the torture chamber, the neoliberal policies of Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship reversed many of the gains in wages, benefits, and working conditions that Chile's workers had won during decades of struggle and triggered a severe economic crisis. Later refined and softened, Pinochet's neoliberal model began, finally, to promote economic growth in the mid-1980s, and it was maintained by the center-left governments that followed the restoration of democracy in 1990. Yet, despite significant increases in worker productivity, real wages stagnated, the expected restoration of labor rights faltered, and gaps in income distribution continued to widen. To shed light on this history and these ongoing problems, the contributors look at industries long part of the Chilean economy--including textiles and copper--and industries that have expanded more recently--including fishing, forestry, and agriculture. They not only show how neoliberalism has affected Chile's labor force in general but also how it has damaged the environment and imposed special burdens on women. Painting a sobering picture of the two Chiles--one increasingly rich, the other still mired in poverty--these essays suggest that the Chilean miracle may not be as miraculous as it seems.
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"Contributors.
Paul Drake
Volker Frank
Thomas Klubock
Rachel Schurman
Joel Stillerman
Heidi Tinsman
Peter Winn