Description
Book SynopsisLope de Aguirre, Anti-imperialism, and the Latin American Left: The Wrath of Liberation examines why anti-imperialist projects have the tendency to become tyrannies, with a focus on Latin America. Alfredo Ignacio Poggi discusses the figure of Lope de Aguirre, the first modern revolutionary leader, and his various historical representations in literature, essays, theater, film, and comics as a vehicle to interrogate the Latin American anti-imperialist imagination. Poggi argues that the experience of anger is a constituent element of Latin American anti-imperialism and that the social imaginary that emerged in the late nineteenth century – following the intellectual tradition of liberation and the continental political left – has a wrathful dimension capable of generating political programs of revenge, finding an echo in Latin American leaders like Che Guevara and Hugo Chávez. Poggi ultimately proposes to renovate liberationist thinking by offering mercy as an alternative anti-imperialist emotion that can overcome the dangers implicit in anger’s radicalization as wrath. Scholars of history, Latin American studies, international relations, and political science will find this book particularly useful.
Table of ContentsAcknowledgmentsPrologueIntroductionChapter 1 - Four Cardinal Directions on a Theoretical Map of Aguirre’s ExpeditionChapter 2 - Descending into the Depths of the Anti-Imperial ImaginaryChapter 3 - Hell: The Condemnation of AguirreChapter 4 - Purgatory: The Expiation of AguirreChapter 5 - Heaven: Aguirre in the Paradise of the Political LeftChapter 6 - Latin American Revelation: The Consolidation of Liberationist Thought from Martí to ChávezConclusion -From Wrath to MercyBibliography
About the Author
