Marie Arana

Discussing "Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story."

press release: With her new book, Silver, Sword, and Stone: Three Crucibles in the Latin American Story, Arana weaves a magnificent tapestry of historical research with up-to-the-minute reporting and cultural analysis to give readers an urgent look at Latin America today. Silver, Sword, and Stone is a brilliant, kaleidoscopic book. Its extraordinary sweep artfully and perceptively traverses a wide terrain of time and topics, showing readers how the past lives on today. “History has a way of slipping fitfully into the future,” writes Arana, and nowhere is that clearer than in the people she profiles. They are emblematic of three obsessions that have held Latin Americans fast for the past millennium:

Silver represents the lust for precious metals—a fixation that burned brightly before Columbus’stime, consumed Spain in its relentless conquest of America, drove a cruel system of slavery and colonial exploitation, sparked bloody revolutions, addled the region’s stability for centuries, and morphed into Latin America’s best hope for the future.