Silver, Sword and Stone (Inscribed First Edition, First Printing)

Arana, Marie

ISBN 10: 1501104241 / ISBN 13: 9781501104244

Published by Simon and Schuster, 2019

About this Item

Inscribed First Edition, First Printing of this study of the history of Latin America that examines how the extraction of mineral wealth, political violence and spiritual authority have been central elements in shaping societies from Mexico to Argentina from the era of Columbus onward. Inscribed by Marie Arana to a previous owner on the title page. 477 pages. On the front endpaper, there are some notes written by the previous owner. No markings on any other pages and otherwise minimal sign of previous use.

Seller Inventory # 014973

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Silver, Sword and Stone (Inscribed First Edition, First Printing)
• Publisher: Simon and Schuster
• Publication Date: 2019
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1501104241
• ISBN 13: 9781501104244
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Very Good
• Dust Jacket Condition: Near Fine
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)

About this title

Synopsis

Winner, American Library Association Booklist&;s Top of the List, 2019 Adult Nonfiction

Longlisted for the 2020 Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence

Against the background of a thousand years of vivid history, acclaimed writer Marie Arana tells the timely and timeless stories of three contemporary Latin Americans whose lives represent three driving forces that have shaped the character of the region: exploitation (silver), violence (sword), and religion (stone).

Leonor Gonzales lives in a tiny community perched 18,000 feet above sea level in the Andean cordillera of Peru, the highest human habitation on earth. Like her late husband, she works the gold mines much as the Indians were forced to do at the time of the Spanish Conquest. Illiteracy, malnutrition, and disease reign as they did five hundred years ago. And now, just as then, a miner&;s survival depends on a vast global market whose fluctuations are controlled in faraway places.

Carlos Buergos is a Cuban who fought in the civil war in Angola and now lives in a quiet community outside New Orleans. He was among hundreds of criminals Cuba expelled to the US in 1980. His story echoes the violence that has coursed through the Americas since before Columbus to the crushing savagery of the Spanish Conquest, and from 19th- and 20th-century wars and revolutions to the military crackdowns that convulse Latin America to this day.

Xavier Albó is a Jesuit priest from Barcelona who emigrated to Bolivia, where he works among the indigenous people. He considers himself an Indian in head and heart and, for this, is well known in his adopted country. Although his aim is to learn rather than proselytize, he is an inheritor of a checkered past, where priests marched alongside conquistadors, converting the natives to Christianity, often forcibly, in the effort to win the New World. Ever since, the Catholic Church has played a central role in the political life of Latin America&;sometimes for good, sometimes not.

In Silver, Sword, and Stone Marie Arana seamlessly weaves these stories with the history of the past millennium to explain three enduring themes that have defined Latin America since pre-Columbian times: the foreign greed for its mineral riches, an ingrained propensity to violence, and the abiding power of religion. What emerges is a vibrant portrait of a people whose lives are increasingly intertwined with our own.

About the Author

Marie Arana was born in Lima, Peru. She is the author of the memoir American Chica, a finalist for the National Book Award; two novels, Cellophane and Lima Nights; and The Writing Life, a collection from her well-known column for The Washington Post. She is the Literary Director of the Library of Congress and lives in Washington, DC, and Lima, Peru.