Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World

New York: Henry Holt and Company; Metropolitan Books, 2000. 358 pages, illustrations; 22 cm. Illustrated with engravings by Jose Guadalupe Posada. Tight, clean copy. Stated First American Edition. Dust jacket protected in a mylar cover. A fine copy of the first printing. "From the winner of the first Lannan Prize for Cultural Freedom, a bitingly funny, kaleidoscopic vision of the first world through the eyes of the third. Eduardo Galeano, author of the incomparable Memory of Fire Trilogy, combines a novelist's intensity, a poet's lyricism, a journalist's fearlessness, and the strong judgments of an engaged historian. Now his talents are richly displayed in Upside Down, an eloquent, passionate, sometimes hilarious expose of our first-world privileges and assumptions. In a series of lesson plans and a "program of study" about our beleaguered planet, Galeano takes the reader on a wild trip through the global looking glass. From a master class in 'The Impunity of Power'" to a seminar on 'The Sacred Car'--with tips along the way on 'How to Resist Useless Vices' and a declaration of 'The Right to Rave'--he surveys a world unevenly divided between abundance and deprivation, carnival and torture, power and helplessness. We have accepted a reality we should reject, Galeano teaches us, one where machines are more precious than humans, people are hungry, poverty kills, and children toil from dark to dark. A work of fire and charm, Upside Down makes us see the world anew and even glimpse how it might be set right. / Eduardo Galeano, one of Latin America's most distinguished writers, journalists, and historians, is the author of the Memory of Fire trilogy (winner of the 1989 American Book Award), Open Veins of Latin America, and many other works. He lives in Montevideo, Uruguay.." - Publisher. CONTENTS: Educating by example; The students; Injustice 101; Racism and sexism 101; The teaching of fear; The industry of fear; Sewing: how to make enemies to measure; Practicum: how to make friends and succeed in life; Lessons for resisting useless vices; Case studies; Hunters of people; Exterminators of the planet; The sacred car; Lessons from consumer society; Crash course on incommunications; The end of the millennium as promise and betrayal; The right to rave.. 1st. Hardcover. Fine/Fine. 8vo. Collectible.