In Paul Theroux’s The Mosquito Coast, the protagonist Allie Fox takes a boat from Baltimore to Central America. He lands in Honduras, where he buys a place called Jeronimo, at an indeterminate location in the rainforest. Expecting virgin territory, his plans go awry when it turns out there are people there already, and the obstacles…
One of the more unusual events in the long history of popular uprisings against despotic regimes took place in Nicaragua on the night of 27 June 1979. The grip of the Somoza dynasty, which had ruled the country for more than 40 years, was slipping. The Sandinistas had advanced from their rural strongholds into the…
The government of Honduras, which justified the illegal coup that brought it to power in 2009 on the grounds that it was necessary to protect the constitution, recently amended the constitution to give itself the power to create ‘special development regions’ with their own (yet to be determined) laws. The hope is to build a…
On a visit to the Natural History Museum a few years ago, my eye was caught by a small exhibition of animal products confiscated by British customs officials: snakeskin belts, crocodile skin bags, wallets made from the skins of protected species, stuffed baby alligators, stuffed toads arranged around miniature pool tables, clutching cues. As if…
Britain may have invented the soap opera but nowhere has the format been promoted more vigorously than in Latin America. For decades, telenovelas have been produced in Mexico, Venezuela, Argentina and elsewhere, and viewed by hundreds of millions daily from Mexico City to Buenos Aires. Their reach extends to the US and (on a more…
Daniel Dorling is one of the researchers who has shown that the idea that we are ‘sleepwalking into segregation’ because ethnic minorities are becoming more concentrated in British cities like Bradford is wrong – in fact, the reverse is happening. Where we are becoming more segregated is between rich and poor. Affluent people are voting…
Dear Mr. Brooks, In your January 15, 2010, opinion piece in The New York Times, The Underlying Tragedy, you present what you seem to believe is a bold assessment of the situation in Haiti and what you certainly know is a provocative recommendation for Haiti’s future. You also offer some advice to President Obama. In…