Ed Morales

This was hard going. In part because I'm not a political being, so I found the political element rather dense. I couldn't really tell you what neoliberalism actually means, but there seemed to be quite a lot of it. It is very focussed on the American experience, with very little in relation to the perception and influence outside the American hemisphere. On the other had, the intiial chapters were really interesting and I feel that I learnt something that I had never considered before.
I won show more this book from the Al-Rhodan awards, which aims to encourage understanding between cultures. In which case, it partly achieved its aims. I have certainly learnt something about another cultural tradition, it's origins and conflicts. That I didn't understand all of it is as much my lack of point of contact as the author's writing for a more specific than general audience. show less

Some provocative ideas, especially about race, and about vocabulary, e.g. "Hispanic," "Latin," and so on. Author is a journalist, and can tell a good anecdote. However he does not seem to be able to make an argument over the course of an extended series of essays. The book is very scattered and ultimately not very convincing.

This isn't a book about Puerto Rico's economic situation, with facts presented and then conclusions drawn from those facts. It's a rant by a Marxist who lives in NYC and is somehow part of the establishment, with family from Puerto Rico, who uses a few examples from the past ~40 years of Puerto Rico's history to try to advance his agenda. Particularly hilarious when he talks about how horrible irs 936 was (which brought a lot of manufacturing to the island, including some very high value show more pharma with great jobs), and then how bad it was that 936 was ended, and then how bad other current incentive programs are. The "everyone is secretly in favor of independence but afraid to admit it" angle is also pretty lulzy. show less

A dos años del huracán María, Puerto Rico aún sigue recuperándose de la destrucción física de la tormenta y el colapso de la infraestructura resultante. La devastación agravó los efectos dañinos de más de un siglo causados por la explotación de Estados Unidos con sus políticas económicas, sociales y de asuntos políticos, incluido el trauma infligido por su crisis de deuda de 72 mil millones de dólares.
En La isla de la fantasía, el periodista Ed Morales describe cómo, a lo show more largo de los años, Puerto Rico ha servido como un satélite colonial, una vitrina de la Guerra Fría del Caribe, un vertedero de productos manufacturados en Estados Unidos y un refugio fiscal corporativo. Emprendiendo al lector en un viaje ida y vuelta de San Juan a la ciudad de Nueva York, La isla de la fantasía es un relato crucial y claro de los 122 años de Puerto Rico como colonia de los Estados Unidos. show less