SAQUEO CULTURAL DE AMERICA LATINA, EL

by Fernando Báez

A polemic work that reveals, in an interesting and moving way, how 60% of the historical memory of the Latin Americans disappeared since the XVI century until the globalization#58; the elimination of the Mayan and Aztec codexes, the extinction of more than a thousand languages, the religious wars against the idolatries, the annihilation of thousand-year-old indigenous and African cultures, the demolition of monuments and religious and political buildings, the robbery of thousands of archaeological sites and museums, the censorship and autos de fe the devastation against hundreds of tangible and untangible patrimonies, and others. Withou hiding his horror, Fernando Baacute;ez presents the cultural genocide caused by the European empires and the United States, in the intent of establishing a collective amnesia to so favor the hegemony of the Western, Christian civilization. This book proves that the pillage of the symbols was bound to enable a single thought line for the sake of facilitating the military and economic domain. Nowadays, this mutilated identity discloses inequalities and inequities, injustices and ancestral hates that can only be explained by the serious damages suffered by all the affected generations. Una poleacute;mica obra que relata en forma amena y conmovedora coacute;mo desaparecioacute; el 60% de la memoria histoacute;rica de los latinoamericanos desde el siglo XVI hasta la globalizacioacute;n#58; la eliminacioacute;n de los coacute;dices mayas y aztecas, la extincioacute;n de maacute;s de mil idiomas, las guerras religiosas contras las idolatriacute;as, el exterminio de culturas indiacute;genas y africanas milenarias, la demolicioacute;n de monumentos y edificios religiosos y poliacute;ticos, la censura y autos de fe de las dictaduras del siglo XX, entre otros. Con horror, Fernando Baacute;ez presenta el genocidio cultural causado por los imperios europeos y por Estados Unidos en el intento de establecer una amnesia colectiva para favorecer de esta manera la hegemoniacute;a de la civilizacioacute;n occidental y cristiana.

Paperback

First published February 28, 2008

About the author

Fernando Báez (San Félix, Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela) is a Venezuelan writer, poet and essayist. He is known for his work on the destruction of Iraqi books and art caused by the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Báez has a degree in education and a doctorate in library science, and worked for several years at the University of the Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, where he studied Greek and Latin under José Manuel Briceño Guerrero.

Among his works are Historia Universal de la Destrucción de Libros (2004), Historia de la Antigua Biblioteca de Alejandría (2003), La Destrucción Cultural de Iraq (2004), which was translated into English by Alfred MacAdam and published in 2008 as A Universal History of the Destruction of Books: From Ancient Sumer to Modern-day Iraq.

He published his first novel, El Traductor de Cambridge, in 2005. Báez has also translated ancient Greek texts, specifically Los Fragmentos de Aristóteles (2002) and La Poética de Aristóteles (2002).

He was declared a persona non-grata by the United States authorities, after the publication of his book on Iraq.

Reviews

[Angelo Ortiz Vega · Rating 5 out of 5]

El saqueo cultural de América Latina nos muestra como las siniestras acciones de "conquistadores" logran destruir todo, literalmente. Realiza un recorrido histórico desde los primeros años, hasta la actualidad.
La imposición del idioma español devastó nada menos que doscientas lenguas y partió en pedazos el pasado de riqueza lingüística. Una minoría de soldados exterminó casi totalmente una población de cien millones de indios. Son casos aislados pero podemos citar una lista de las principales barbaries que se produjeron: saqueo económico, genocidio, etnocidio, transculturación y memoricidio, Negligencia y tráfico ilícito, exterminio cultural, evangelización, entre muchas otras.

[Grissel · Rating 5 out of 5]

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