Saving the Americas (Book Review)

"Saving the Americas: The Dangerous Decline of Latin America ... and What the U.S. Must Do". By Andres Oppenheimer. Random House Books, c2008, #0307391639, 387 pages, $18 (this is a translation of c2006-2007 versions of his, "Cuentos Chinos", which has sold a remarkable quarter-of-a-million copies in Latin America; impressive for an interdisciplinary nonfiction work available in a region of the world not well-known for book-buying).

A questionable (or at least highly debatable), yet intriguing thesis; it is informed, well-written, not targeted to academics, and rather well done. Imagine a 400-page Time Magazine article (less the photos) devoted to why Latin American countries have so often failed while some other similarly plagued countries in other parts of the world have sometimes succeeded - and the future possibility of something other than that reoccurring failure happening south of Texas.

Unlike so many books over the last few decades that attempt to explain everything "Latin American" in terms of dependency, corporatism, and/or racism (none of these theories can actually account for the relevant problems, which somehow doesn't put a damper on the popularity of the theories) Oppenheimer has a completely different starting point; he is not viewing matters simply as a historian or economist, but more as an educated observer, asking "what if these places were comparable to there other places...?". Oppenheimer's test cases are (from the chapter titles): "The Asian Challenge", "China's Capitalist Fever", "That Irish Miracle" and, "The New Europe".

While it might seem misguided or even insane to compare Ireland to Latin regional locales as diverse as Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica (this book, like several others released this year and last year, repeatedly uses the phrase "Latin America", but is really mostly just focused on South America), Oppenheimer makes a decent case for it, and not just as a thought experiment. After all, as he points out per Ireland, what some such countries have in common is that they are: primarily agricultural, intensely Roman Catholic, fond of arts & sports at the expense of science & technology, hard-drinking, quite poor, always sending their young abroad for decent work, a place where social scientists astronomically outnumber technologists, a land where tax evasion is second only to soccer in popularity, have a fondness for tardiness, and are, of course, corrupt. After all, how had Ireland gone from being the idiot little brother of Euro-countries to an economic miracle, in just more than a decade (by 2006 their per capita income rankings had surpassed Germany and England) - and in 2003 "The Economist" had ranked them the best country in which to live; the former dumping ground beat out Norway, Switzerland, etc.

Oppenheimer investigates how they went from being primarily agricultural to a technology powerhouse in less than a generation, tripling their per capita income in the process - and all without the major IMF focus. He shoots down the European-Union-subsidies-did-it-all argument and looks at what else was going on. He makes similar comparisons to each country he visits: Ireland, China, Poland, Czech Republic, etc. He then devotes a chapter to each so-called "comparable" Latin American giant: Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Venezuela. While he focuses on the biggest and most influential Latin American countries, he says nothing that necessarily rules out the smaller locales (addressing this would have made the book even more interesting), though each of these test-cases stands out as one of the best possibilities, for one reason or another.

The best section is arguably the conclusion, "Latin America in the New Century". While much of this is quite controversial, it stems directly from what the successful places he has visited had done; he dives into the rankings of what was and what is (implying what could be) per: high-quality basic education (almost impossible to find in Latin America), university education (perhaps the worst in the world), patent holders (nearly nonexistent in Latin America compared to other regions of the world), number of fluent English speakers (getting more common but they get too late a start and the educational system is too incompetent anyway), prevalence of value-added products (still not common; these countries still basically just sell off resources pure and cheap), the number of psychologists for every engineer (the numbers fluctuate, but the ratio is ridiculous - unless the bulk of the population were insane), etc., etc., etc. Judging from his focus here, one can likely assume what he believes the U.S. must do. While not directly on target, the question remains: What is the U.S. currently offering any Latin American country that is comparable to what the European Union offers a country there?

Oppenheimer may or may not always make a good analogy, but the book is interesting, if for no other reason than that he is informed, well-traveled, is from the Latin world, and is not small-minded. The book is perhaps more valuable as a thought-experiment than an actual map to anything any one person might accomplish. I have my doubts, but then again it is entirely possible that when they were planning the "Irish Tiger", some guy more than half- way through a 12-pack was overly critical and typing away criticisms on the www. Who knows.

* Oppenheimer, a former AP Reporter, is a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist (for Miami Herald coverage of the Iran-Contra Scandal) who has a regular column for the Miami Herald, Reforma (Mexico), & La Nacion (Argentina - his home country). He hosts a popular television program, “Oppenheimer Presenta“, and his homepage offers additional information: http://www.andresoppenheimer.com/. He has written numerous books; perhaps most importantly, the excellent, "Castro's Final Hour".