Rating: 
Summary: The state we're in
Review: Drawing from first-hand experience and an impressive list of documentation, Galeano describes the effects of imperialism in the Americas. He writes in a style that is surprisingly clear for all the information he packs into each sentence.This is an angry, insightful book worth reading twice.
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Summary: Simply excellent. Simple, damning, convincing prose.
Review: Eduardo Galeano was prompted to leave Uruguay for being too pushy with the truth. His crime? Telling tales that pushed politicians and citizens before the mirror of Uruguay's looking glass world. These same pushy truths are revived in Galeano's 10th book, Upside Down: A Primer for The Looking-Glass World. Galeano's newest collection of essays and quiet manifestos-haunted throughout by the sketchings of deceased political illustrator Jose Guadalupe Posada-are part advertisement, part class syllabi, part prose performance piece, and part human rights reportage. Deftly translated by Mark Fried, chapters include such titles as: The Sacred Car, The Teaching of Fear, and Master Class on Impunity. Each missive, biting yet lyrical, is a carefully considered bit of philosophical criticism dispelling the mystique of the 'advertised life'. By integrating slogans, commercials and advertisements into his prose performance pieces, Galeano reinterprets market economics, and deflates the progress myth of 20th century divine capitalism. It is impossible to read Upside Down without growing from reader to critic. However, Galeano's greatest achievement is not of social critic but as prose stylist and artisan. As such, he creates a new architectural foundation for words by extending the boundaries of fiction and non-fiction then re-joining them in order to put forth his ideas. In this book of easy and affecting prose Galeano directs the reader to be as he must always be-always conscious and forever a participant. "The looking-glass school teaches us to suffer reality, not change it; to forget the past, not learn from it; to accept the future, not invent it...Yet perhaps-who can say-there can be no disgrace without grace, no sign without a countersign, and no school that does not beget its counterschool."
Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING!!!
Review: Excellent work by Eduardo Galeano, this book is absolutely awesome. While Galeano employs a very enjoyable sarcastic humor throughout the chapters of the book, he makes it easy for readers to perceive a general and clear perspective of the third world. Highly recomended!
Rating:
Summary: OUTSTANDING!!!
Review: Excellent work by Eduardo Galeano, this book is absolutely awesome. While Galeano employs a very enjoyable sarcastic humor throughout the chapters of the book, he makes it easy for readers to perceive a general and clear perspective of the third world. Highly recomended!
Rating:
Summary: Hard, straightforward and beautiful
Review: First of all, may I say how utterly I disagree with readers who criticize Galeano for pointing out the wrongs and not offering solutions. Why should he? This kind of criticism evidences lack of understanding of the book's nature and purposes. This book is not a political programme. It is a masterful piece of writing intended to give information that is all too often withheld and suppressed, and to awaken political conciousness. Both of which are, may I respectfully add, much needed in the United States, where most of the negative reviews come from. Galeano succeeds in what no other author I know has succeeded - in writing a poetical, haunting book about politics. While describing the misery and suffering that capitalism is wreaking on our upside-down world, he is also able to give us vignettes of amazing beauty. Writers, as everybody knows, don't have to draw their subject matter from romance and butterflies to write beautifully, but managing to write a book full of tenderness, poetry and a very wry humour while describing hunger, torture and repression is, I think, a kind of feat. Galeano doesn't flinch at the world's evils. He tells them. So, if you read him, you're in for a good dose of reality. Maybe that isn't to the taste of every reader. But then, what do we have Jackie Collins and Danielle Steel for?
Rating:
Summary: Another Possible World
Review: Galeano is well known for his histories of Empire, but here he presents us with an entirely different - if related - book. UPSIDE DOWN strives to illuminate the absurdities of our world: a world where the strong devour the weak, where corporations devastate the planet, and TV colonizes our souls. Written in the most penetrating and damning language, Galeano is not afraid to tell it like it is. In other words, this is not a feel-good book. For this reason, some have discredited it as a "diatribe," without fully knowing the meaning, history or import of the word. Defined as "learned discourse" mixed with "bitter resentment," UPSIDE DOWN is indeed a diatribe - but the most necessary, illuminating and effective diatriabe out there (with the possible except of Derrick Jenson's A LANGUAGE OLDER THAN WORDS and CULTURE OF MAKE BELIEVE). Similar to those books, UPSIDE DOWN is a scathing indictment of the injustices of modern life. But it is also a shrill, poetic cry for change. This book will unlock more than feelings remorse for the suffering, it will also unlock anger and infuse you with passion for change. All together, a strange little book of riddles, sardonic poems of dissent, mind-boggling statistics, perspective warps, linguistic twists, and poetic flares. Hooked from the first page, it blew me away. In the end, I must have commonplaced over a quarter of it. Another Galeano masterpiece. Should not be overlooked. "We may be badly made, but we're not finished, and it's the adventure of changing reality and changing ourselves that makes our blip in the history of the universe worthwhile, this fleeting warmth between two glaciers that is us."
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Summary: why am I laughing? why am I crying?
Review: Galeano opens with a reference to Alice of Wonderland fame. He suggests that to discover the looking-glass world she woundn't need a mirror - only a window. I think rather, assuming Alice were a white first-worlder (as am I), that her parents would make sure the windows were replaced with massive TV screens showing only Disney pastoral scenes. Only bad Alices actually see what is. Upside Down doesn't have the accumulated force of Memory of Fire but it does have facts and humor. In a moment reminiscent of I.F. Stone, Galeano reports that in the January 31, 1998 edition of a Uruguayan daily, the first page congratulated the Brazilian government on selling off the national telephone company. The second page applauded same decision for getting rid of a "burden to the treasury". Page 16 reported that the national telephone company, this "burden to the treasury", had made $3.9 billion in profits for 1997. Quite a burden to the treasury. It's a wonder anyone bought it. No more cribbed examples, but this book will have you laughing and crying.....
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Summary: Truth, at once devastating and exhilarating
Review: I hated this book. Reading it was an utter waste of my time. While I don't doubt that every fact that Galeano stated was true, I kept waiting for him to offer some solutions. Any solutions. Instead it was just page after page of problems and injustices. I know that the world is horribly unfair. I would like some to propose actionable solutions. This book does not do that. If you listen to NPR, read the NYT, or watch PBS, this book is of no use to you.
Rating:
Summary: ashamed to be "upside down"
Review: Upside Down is a shocking and passionate documentation of the world's injustices that our "upside down" First World society has turned our back upon. This book will not merely evoke sympathy and remorse, but will leave you screaming for change. I found myself drawn especially to Galeano's dark humor and satirical, poetic style. Galeano's fiery language left me speechless. However, at times I did become glazed after reading list after list of facts. I found that the most inspirational and telling portions of the book were the rare asides and anecdotes in which individuals' stories were recounted. Galeano shows us the bleak reality that we have accepted- a reality where children toil from dawn to dusk to stay alive- a reality where power is driven by security, money and terror. This book will make you ashamed to be privileged.
Rating: 
Summary: Upside down
Review: While Eduardo Galeano makes some very valid points about how messed up our perception of what a properly functioning world is, He doesnt offer much more then that. He gives minimal suggestions as to how to turn our world right again. This perhaps was his point that this book was only to point out the problems and leave the reader to find the means to fix it.
I would highly recomend to any reader that they read this book cover to cover and then go reread the few parts that dont quite sink in. I found that after the second time through I was able to relate a lot more of his thoughts. Also try to keep an open political and economic outlook I garantee if you a strongly(First world) opinionated you will find yourself wanting to tear the pages up.
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