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Desert Memories : Journeys Through the Chilean North (National Geographic Directions)
Desert Memories Journeys Through the Chilean North - National Geographic Directions Author:Ariel Dorfman The Norte Grande of Chile, the worlds driest desert, had "engendered contemporary Chile, everything that was good about it, everything that was dreadful," writes Ariel Dorfman in his brilliant exploration of one of the least known and most exotic corners of the globe. For 10,000 years the desert had been mined for silver, iron, and copper,... more » but it was the 19th-century discovery of nitrate that transformed the country into a modern state and forced the deserts colonization. The mines riches generated mansions and oligarchs in Chiles more temperate regionand terrible inequalities throughout the country. The Norte Grande also gave birth to the first Chilean democratic and socialist movements, nurturing every major political figure of modern Chile from Salvador Allende to Augusto Pinochet. In this richly layered personal memoir, illustrated with the authors own photographs, Dorfman sets out to explore the origins of contemporary Chileand, along the way, seek out his wifes European ancestors who came years ago to Chile as part of the nitrate rush. And, most poignantly, he looks for traces of his friend and fellow 1960s activist, Freddy Taberna, executed by a firing squad in a remote Pinochet death camp.« less