Latin American Radicalism [antikvár]

Preface The preparation of a documentary reader differs considerably from the task of writing a book. In a documentary the need is for broad coverage rather than a unified, systematic approach. There is the further assumption that the purpose of a documentary is to acquaint the reader with a range of materials no one person can do justice to or encompass. In this case the goals of a documentary have been eminently fulfilled. While there have been many readers on the subject of Latin America, this is, to the best of our knowledge, the first documentary which singles out for special attention the role of the left in Latin America. Often enough documentaries on Latin America have a left-wmg emphasis elliptically, almost inadvertently, since in some sense the left is where the action is. Nonetheless the task of making explicit the role of the Latin American left remained undone. It is our shared feeling that a need exists to make plain what the ferment on the left represents. For if one can speak of the polarization of left and right in America, one must also take note of the pluralization within the left that has taken place in fact as a consequence of this larger polarization. vii