Upside Down: A Primer for the Looking-Glass World

This is simply one of the best factual books I have ever read.Have you got a car? Or a well paid job in the North (west) of our planet? Have you ever taken drugs, bought anything at all that is on offer in our consumer culture? If yes then you should definetely read this.Galeano brings together everything you already know, and a lot you probably don't know about the injustice and inequality of our world, writes it down as a poetic polemic and leaves the reader to make his or her own judgement on the facts laid before them. Fearless and provocative it is also accessible and undemanding considering the subject matter.This man is an actual genius and I will be reading more of his work as soon as I can inbetween boring my friends rigid talking about this one!

I don't know how I got to this age without reading this book. Buy it!

Difficult to read. An idiosyncratic style. I gave it to a friend after slogging through 20 pages

Explains in clear, lucid, poetic prose - full of savage satire - how 'topsy-turvy' the reality of the world is compared to the illusion that is its presentation in the Western media. Read his preface comments on the 'crime' he and collaborators are committing against the West, by telling the truth about it, and how they are likely to be 'punished for their misdeeds'. A world full of propaganda by a West plundering the resources of the rest of it, certainly will regard its exposure as a crime.

I discovered Galeano two years ago, and sincerely wish I'd come across his stuff long ago. The translation by Mark Fried is excellent: you'd hardly know you're reading a translation at all. There are interesting engravings in my paperback edition -- I wish I'd bought hardcover, though.