Uruguayan journalist and writer Eduardo Galeano published one of his most popular books, “Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent” in 1971, and gives readers a left-winged perspective of the history of the post-colonial Americas. Throughout this book, Galeano presents the argument that the underdevelopment of Latin America resulted because of exploitation. Since the 15th century, Latin America served as a location where European countries could be made wealthier. The Latin American continent has suffered massively in terms of constant abuse and capitalism of their natural resources from colonial nations. The book begins with the history of Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the West Indies and the discovery of …show more content…
Latin America’s economic development suffered gravely because of the economic dependence of other places like Europe. And while colonizers made themselves richer with these resources, their own colonies were being depleted. In the 17th century, for instance Europe used Latin American’s resources, such as coffee and sugar to create plantations in the Caribbean and Africa in order to secure a richer economy, which is what they were interested in. This kind of exploitation from Europe compelled Latin America to then instead depend on Europe for their economy’s sake. Galeano quotes, “The whole process was a pumping of blood from one set of veins to another: the development of the development of some, the underdevelopment of others” (83). Many reasons led to the underdevelopment of Latin America however, and it was not just because of the exploitation of Europe. Their underdevelopment also resulted because of Latin America’s small-scale population, geographical location, and resources that served as economic growth for other places. Eduardo Galeano’s language and text in Open Veins makes it seem as though Europe is entirely at fault for Latin America’s unsuccessfulness. As a reader however, I feel as though Latin America had a complicated, at times problematic relationship with other nations such as the U.S. and to some extent also