Jorge G. Castañeda – författare

Do Americans care what foreigners think about the United States? This book makes the case that they should. In these pages, Jorge Castañeda writes from his unique vantage point as a former Foreign Minister of Mexico who has lived, studied, and worked in America. He offers an impressionistic, analytical, and intuitive review of his experience in the country over the last half-century, and shows how foreigners can provide perspective on the United States' true nature. Castañeda brings a different viewpoint to issues ranging from purported American exceptionalism, uniformity, race and religion, culture, immigration, and the death penalty.Visitors and analysts, from Dickens to Naipaul, have generally asked the right questions and described America's most salient features and mysteries. But, they have not always followed through with answers and explanations. Castañeda draws from his work with American civil society and government authorities to provide both insight and context. Americans have long seen their country as "exceptional," standing outside of history, but by comparing its contemporary politics and culture with those of other countries, Castañeda shows how increasing nationalism and nostalgia are actually making the US more like other countries.Castañeda admits that most Americans have never cared much about what a foreigner thinks about their country, but the dynamic is shifting. The outside world means more to the US than ever before, and Americans should care about what foreigners think since they are now so sensitive to what foreigners do. Since Trump's election in 2016, American politics increasingly resemble those of Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia, such that pining for a lost and glorious past is as American as it is British, Mexican, Chinese, or Italian. Now, the questions that serious, knowledgeable, and sympathetic foreigners address to Americans may be the ones Americans ask--or should ask--for themselves.

Do Americans care what foreigners think about the United States? This book makes the case that they should. In these pages, Jorge Castañeda writes from his unique vantage point as a former Foreign Minister of Mexico who has lived, studied, and worked in America. He offers an impressionistic, analytical, and intuitive review of his experience in the country over the last half-century, and shows how foreigners can provide perspective on the United States' true nature. Castañeda brings a different viewpoint to issues ranging from purported American exceptionalism, uniformity, race and religion, culture, immigration, and the death penalty.Visitors and analysts, from Dickens to Naipaul, have generally asked the right questions and described America's most salient features and mysteries. But, they have not always followed through with answers and explanations. Castañeda draws from his work with American civil society and government authorities to provide both insight and context. Americans have long seen their country as "exceptional," standing outside of history, but by comparing its contemporary politics and culture with those of other countries, Castañeda shows how increasing nationalism and nostalgia are actually making the US more like other countries.Castañeda admits that most Americans have never cared much about what a foreigner thinks about their country, but the dynamic is shifting. The outside world means more to the US than ever before, and Americans should care about what foreigners think since they are now so sensitive to what foreigners do. Since Trump's election in 2016, American politics increasingly resemble those of Europe, Latin America, and parts of Asia, such that pining for a lost and glorious past is as American as it is British, Mexican, Chinese, or Italian. Now, the questions that serious, knowledgeable, and sympathetic foreigners address to Americans may be the ones Americans ask--or should ask--for themselves.

Cuando llegó el momento en que fue muerto en las selvas de Bolivia, donde su cuerpo fue exhibido como un Cristo destronado, Ernesto "Che  Guevara se había convertido en sinónimo de revolución en todas partes desde Cuba hasta los terrenos universitarios de los Estados Unidos. Esta biografía extraordinaria por uno de los más prominentes analistas políticos de Latinoamérica revela la leyenda del Che Guevara para mostrar el carismático e inquieto hombre detrás de ella.Tomando de los archivos de tres continentes y de entrevistas con la familia y asociados de Guevara, Jorge Castañeda sigue al Che desde su niñez en la clase media argentina hasta los años de peregrinaje que lo hicieron un revolucionario dedicado. Castañeda examina las complejas relaciones entre Guevara y Fidel Castro, quien lo hizo su mano derecha aún cuando el Che se convirtió en la conciencia política de Fidel. Y Castañeda analiza las fallas de carácter que forzaron al Che a irse de Cuba y dar sus energias y, finalmente, su vida a aventuras quijotescas en el Congo y Bolivia. Una obra maestra de erudición y simpatía literaria, Compañero es el retrato definitivo de una figura que continua fascinando e inspirando a gentes del mundo entero.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Why are Mexicans so successful in individual sports, but deficient in team play? Why do Mexicans dislike living in skyscrapers? Why do Mexicans love to see themselves as victims, but also love victims? And why, though the Mexican people traditionally avoid conflict, is there so much violence in a country where many leaders have died by assassination? In this shrewd and fascinating book, the renowned scholar and former foreign minister Jorge Castañeda sheds much light on the puzzling paradoxes of his native country. Here’s a nation of 110 million that has an ambivalent and complicated relationship with the United States yet is host to more American expatriates than any country in the world. Its people tend to resent foreigners yet have made the nation a hugely popular tourist destination. Mexican individualism and individual ties to the land reflect a desire to conserve the past and slow the route to uncertain modernity. Castañeda examines the future possibilities for Mexico as it becomes more diverse in its regional identities, socially more homogenous, its character and culture the instruments of change rather than sources of stagnation, its political system more open and democratic. Mañana Forever? is a compelling portrait of a nation at a crossroads.

El rostro enigmático de México presenta hoy hondas cicatrices y un gesto que va del escepticismo a la ironía, del resentimiento al desprecio: ¿Cómo pueden descifrarse las inquietudes de ese rostro? ¿Qué estigmas conservan los mexicanos, a qué mitos se aferran? ¿Qué fracturas hay tras la guerra contra el narcotráfico, la vorágine migratoria y el descrédito de sus gobiernos, de sus aparatos de justicia y sus instituciones? Jorge Castañeda nos ofrece aquí el análisis más profundo que se ha hecho en los últimos años sobre el carácter de su país. Sustentado por un estudio riguroso de filósofos, historiadores, economistas y demás intelectuales que han expresado su fervor o  contrariedad por México, así como por las reflexiones de extranjeros que han visto en ese país a una nación marcada por la hospitalidad o la barbarie, Castañeda nos advierte sobre las idiosincrasias de los mexicanos: la indiferencia a la competencia; la desgana a defender sus convicciones; el por qué se resisten a las acciones colectivas y a la participación comprometida en luchas políticas; de qué manera el descuido de la industria turística afecta su economía; y cómo el crecimiento de la clase media no es necesariamente una señal contundente de bienestar y confianza en los gobiernos. Por las deducciones implacables sobre la realidad moderna mexicana, afiladas por la ironía en la crítica y el reconocimiento de sus zonas más oscuras y dolorosas, Mañana o pasado es, sin duda, la obra imprescindible para entender el México contemporáneo.

Castro''s Cuba is isolated; the guerrillas who once spread havoc through Uruguay and Argentina are dead, dispersed, or running for office as moderates. And in 1990, Nicaragua''s Sandinistas were rejected at the polls by their own constituents. Are these symptoms of the fall of the Latin American left? Or are they merely temporary lulls in an ongoing revolution that may yet transform our hemisphere?This perceptive and richly eventful study by one of Mexico''s most distinguished political scientists tells the story behind the failed movements of the past thirty years while suggesting that the left has a continuing relevance in a continent that suffers from destitution and social inequality. Combining insider''s accounts of intrigue and armed struggle with a clear-sighted analysis of the mechanisms of day-to-day power, Utopia Unarmed is an indispensable work of scholarship, reportage, and political prognosis.

Over a decade ago, Jorge Castañeda wrote the classic Utopia Unarmed, which offered a penetrating and comprehensive account of the Latin American left’s fate at the end of the Cold War. Since then, the left across Latin America has travelled in paths no one could have predicted. Latin American nations from Mexico to Argentina wavered for years between leftism and American-supported neoliberalism, but in recent years the left has experienced a tremendous resurgence throughout the region. However, the left is not unified, and as Castañeda, Morales, and their contributors show, it has followed two distinct paths – a more cosmopolitan style leftism, exemplified by Brazil and Chile, and a left fuelled by populist nationalism that has clear debts to Perón or Cárdenas, and is most evident in Venezuela, Mexico’s PRD, Bolivia, and Argentina. Leftovers comprehensively updates this very important story, with country and area specialists contributing.

Over a decade ago, Jorge Castañeda wrote the classic Utopia Unarmed, which offered a penetrating and comprehensive account of the Latin American left’s fate at the end of the Cold War. Since then, the left across Latin America has travelled in paths no one could have predicted. Latin American nations from Mexico to Argentina wavered for years between leftism and American-supported neoliberalism, but in recent years the left has experienced a tremendous resurgence throughout the region. However, the left is not unified, and as Castañeda, Morales, and their contributors show, it has followed two distinct paths – a more cosmopolitan style leftism, exemplified by Brazil and Chile, and a left fuelled by populist nationalism that has clear debts to Perón or Cárdenas, and is most evident in Venezuela, Mexico’s PRD, Bolivia, and Argentina. Leftovers comprehensively updates this very important story, with country and area specialists contributing.

One of the most trenchant critics of the Latin American scene and American foreign policy, Jorge G. Castañeda has been hailed as the "leading Mexican voice in the U.S. media" (In These Times). In The Mexican Shock Castañeda examines the major issues in Mexico in recent years and their effects on the United States: emigration, the relationship between politics and economics, the assassination of presidential candidate Luis Colosio, and the rapid devaluation of the peso. He also explores the United States's changing perceptions of Mexico and the historical and cultural outlooks that still divide the two countries. Finally, he examines the campaign behind Proposition 187 in California, discussing the dangerous mix of ignorance and bias that has formed so much of America's reaction to Mexico.