Benjamin Dangl

How history--spoken, written, visual, broadcast, and shared--has supported five centuries of indigenous Bolivian resistance.

Indigenous Movements and the Decolonization of History in Bolivia

The Five Hundred Year Rebellion

Bolivia's powerful social movements and the forces they're up against.

Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia

The Price of Fire

social movements and states in Latin America

Dancing with dynamite

After centuries of colonial domination and a twentieth century riddled with dictatorships, indigenous peoples in Bolivia embarked upon a social and political struggle that would change the country forever. As part of that project activists took control of their own history, starting in the 1960s by reaching back to oral traditions and then forward to new forms of print and broadcast media. This book tells the fascinating story of how indigenous Bolivians recovered and popularized histories of past rebellions, political models, and leaders, using them to build movements for rights, land, autonomy, and political power. Drawing from rich archival sources and the author’s lively interviews with indigenous leaders and activist-historians, The Five Hundred Year Rebellion describes how movements tapped into centuries-old veins of oral history and memory to produce manifestos, booklets, and radio programs on histories of resistance, wielding them as tools to expand their struggles and radically transform society.

Thomas Becker

Linda Farthing

A Story of Violence and Resistance in Bolivia

Coup

Written from street barricades and train rides under Andean stars, this is a book that celebrates a world where many worlds fit. Journalist Benjamin Dangl has reported on revolutions and social justice movements around the globe. This collection of vivid photography and lucid writing depicts street scenes, cityscapes, and night jungles from the margins of his reporting. These are dispatches from beyond the homogenizing forces of global capitalism, from decolonized mountain markets, scattered autonomous territories, and peoples' orchestras of the road. The Havana street parties, Ganges River bonfires, and jungle buses in these pages are journeys in themselves, evoking the vastness of our world of many worlds.

A World Where Many Worlds Fit

In the past decade, grassroots social movements played major roles in electing left - leaning governments throughout Latin America, but subsequent relations between the streets and the states remain uneasy. In Dancing with Dynamite, award - winning journalist Benjamin Dangl explores the complex ways these movements have worked with, against, and independently of national governments.From dynamite - wielding miners in Bolivia to the struggles of landless farmers in Brazil and Paraguay, Dangl discusses the dance between movements and states in seven different Latin American countries. Using original research, lively prose, and extensive interviews with workers, farmers, and politicians, he suggests how Latin American social movement strategies could be applied internationally to build a better world now.Ben Dangl breaks the sound barrier, exploding many myths about Latin America that are all - too - often amplified by the corporate media in the United States. Read this much - needed book.'' - Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! Dancing with Dynamite dares to navigate the cloudy waters of Latin American social movements in the wake of the neoliberal wave, something which increasingly fewer thinkers and activists dare to do, but which turns out to be urgent.'' - Ral Zibechi, Uruguayan journalist and author of Dispersing Power; Social Movements as Anti - State Forces Dangl brings complicated politics to life by infusing them with the magic, mystery and unbridled joy that invigorate social movements and permeate Latin American life in general.'' - Kari Lydersen, author of Revolt on Goose Island; The Chicago Factory Takeover and What it Says About the Economic Crisis.

Social Movements and States in Latin America

Dancing with Dynamite

New social movements have emerged in Bolivia over the ''price of fire'' - access to basic elements of survival like water, gas, land, coca, employment, and other resources. Though these movements helped pave the way to the presidency for indigenous coca-grower Evo Morales in 2005, they have made it clear that their fight for self-determination doesn't end at the ballot box. From the first moments of Spanish colonization to today's headlines, The Price of Fire offers a gripping account of clashes in Bolivia between corporate and people's power, contextualizing them regionally, culturally, and historically.

Benjamin Dangl

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