The Argentine-born writer Adolfo Gilly has directly observed many of Latin America's most dramatic events, from the Bolivian Revolution of the 1950s and Cuba during the Missile Crisis to the guerrilla wars of Central America and Mexico's Zapatista uprising. Paths of Revolution presents the first representative selection from across his extensive body of work, collecting close-quarters reportage, sharp political analyses and reflections on art and letters.
A living link between the New Left of the 1960s and the Pink Tide of recent decades, Gilly once described the twentieth century as a series of lightning flashes which can illuminate our present-day predicament. The essay form is where he fully comes into his own, covering a truly impressive range of topics and places. This collection draws out the continuities within one of the world's more vibrant and politically successful left traditions.
In the introduction, Tony Wood (author of Russia Without Putin) offer an overall portrait of Gilly's life and work.
"Captures the long arc of Gilly's political commitments and his rare combination of revolutionary principle and strategic agility."
--Jeffery R. Webber, co-author of The Impasse of the Latin American Left
"Gilly is a gifted journalist, deep thinker, and brilliant writer-activist. This rich selection begins to fill a lacuna in the Anglophone world."
--Suzi Weissman, biographer of Victor Serge
"A revolutionary militant whose commitments took him all the way across Latin America and to Europe, into clandestinity, exile and the Mexican jail where his classic study La revolución interrumpida was conceived and written. "
--New Left Review
"Adolfo Gilly shows that intelligent criticism requires passion . . . and that the vision of struggle between heroes and villains belongs to a rudimentary and scholastic version of the events. "
--Carlos Monsiváis, writer and cultural critic
"This important volume should find a home on the desk of historians of Latin America and anybody interested in the Left beyond Europe."
--William A. Booth, Hispanic American Historical Review