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This book takes us on a journey through the frontier zones of Latin America during the 1980s. Kandell, a journalist who was raised in Mexico and based in Buenos Aires, set off to document the state of development in the interior parts of the South American continent. For the most part, he follows the path of a transcontinental road proposed by Peruvian Fernando Belaunde, of which only a few sections had actually been built by the time Kandell wrote this book. Kandell begins his trip in Iquitos, Peru, where he interviews American oil men sent to develop possible oil fields in the Peruvian jungle. He visits Rondonia in Brazil, where he meets newly arrived settlers come to farm lands that had belonged to Indian tribes. He talks to ranchers and visits cocaine growing regions on the great plains of Bolivia. He also describes the economic boon for Paraguay of the Itaipu hydroelectric project. The book contains maps, but no illustrations; there is an index.

The book is very engaging and well researched. In addition to interviewing local people about their thoughts concerning development, Kandell provides extensive historical accounts of the regions, pointing out details which continue to influence the direction of development today. The one area in which his descriptions seem a little lacking is that of the environmental impact of development in these areas. While interviewing settlers in the Brazilian frontier, again and again, Kandell brings up the overcrowding and lack of opportunity in the areas where the settlers came from. He describes how the settlers are clearing land and establishing farms. But he doesn’t discuss how productive the farms are, and he says little about how long the soil is expected to last or what will happen to the Indians who had lived on the lands for generations. Today, we often hear reports that this clearing of the Brazilian rain forest is contributing to global warming, and that the agricultural potential of the land is quite limited anyway. It’s hard to tell whether Kandell was unaware of these issues, or deliberately avoiding them in order to report the development as objectively as possible, without coloring the facts with his own opinions about whether the development would be worth the environmental costs. This book is more about the character of the frontier lifestyle. Kandell explores whether rugged individuality, bravery, and lawlessness are inherent to the people who choose to inhabit the frontier, or whether the conditions on the frontier bring out these characteristics in people.
Rating: 5 / 5