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Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador
University of Pennsylvania Press
September 2007
On Sale: September 1, 2007
339 pages
ISBN: 0271032626
EAN: 9780271032627
Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
The emergence of Latin American firebrands who champion the cause of the impoverished and rail against the evils of neoliberalism and Yankee imperialism--Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Evo Morales in Bolivia, Nastor Kirchner in Argentina, Andras Manuel Lapez Obrador in Mexico--has changed the landscape of the Americas in dramatic ways. This will be the first biography to appear in English about one of these charismatic figures, who is known in his country by his adopted nickname of "Little Ray of Hope." The book follows Lapez Obrador's life from his early years in the flyspecked state of Tabasco, his university studies, and the years that he lived among the impoverished Chontal Indians. Even as he showed an increasingly messianic Alan to uplift the downtrodden, he confronted the muscular Institutional Revolutionary Party in running twice for governor of his home state and helping found the leftist-nationalist Democratic Revolutionary Party (PRD). As the PRD's national president, he escalated his political and ideological warfare against his former president, Carlos Salinas, and other "conspirators" determined to link Mexico to the global economy at the expense of the poor. His strident advocacy of the "have nots" lifted Lapez Obrador to the mayorship of Mexico City, which he rechristened the "City of Hope." Its ubiquitous crime, traffic, pollution, and housing problems have made the capital a tomb for most politicians. Not for Lapez Obrador. Through splashy public works, monthly stipends to senior citizens, huge marches, and a dawn-to-dusk work schedule, he converted the position into a trampoline to the presidency. Although he lost the official count by an eyelash, the hard-charging Tabascan cried fraud, took the oath as the nation's "legitimate president," and barnstormed the country, excoriating the "fascist" policies of President Felipe Calderan and preparing to redeem the destitute in the 2012 presidential contest. Grayson views Lapez Obrador as quite different from populists like Chavez, Morales, and Kirchner and argues that he is a "secular messiah, who lives humbly, honors prophets, gathers apostles, declares himself indestructible, relishes playing the role of victim, and preaches a doctrine of salvation by returning to the values of the 1917 Constitution-- fairness for workers, Indians' rights, fervent nationalism, and anti-imperialism."
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