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Juarez: The Laboratory of Our Future
enlarge	Author: Charles Bowden Creators: Eduardo Galeano, Noam Chomsky Publisher: Aperture Category: Book Buy Used: $64.93 New (1) Used (5) from $64.93 Media: Hardcover Edition: 1st Number Of Items: 1 Pages: 136 Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9 Dimensions (in): 9.9 x 8.6 x 0.7 ISBN: 0893817767 Dewey Decimal Number: 306.097216 EAN: 9780893817763 ASIN: 0893817767 Publication Date: April 15, 1998 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Condition: Excellent customer service. Order inquiries handled promptly.

Editorial Reviews: Product Description diviJuarez: The Laboratory of Our Time/i challenges the propaganda and the realities of the current relationship between the United States and Mexico, focusing on the more intimate connection between the border towns of El Paso and Juarez. Charles Bowden, who first brought attention to the story of the Juarez photographers in iHarper's/i (December 1996), has written an uncompromising, piercing work that combines insightful and informed reporting with a poetic and wry style. His powerful text, integrated with brutal and revealing images by a group of unknown Mexican street photographers, takes on issues of NAFTA, immigration, gangs, corruption, drug trafficking, and poverty, uncovering a very different Mexico than generally depicted in the press and by the United States and Mexican governments.brbrConditions in the impoverished icolonias/i (urban settlements), work on imaquiladora /i(foreign-owned factory) assembly lines, arrests and victims resulting from drug and gang violence, the hardships for women and children-- in short, everyday life in Juarez-- are all depicted here with an urgency and passion that could only grow from pure desperation. This group of guerrilla photographers, most of whom work for one of the daily newspapers in Juarez, earning the equivalent of only $50 to $100 per week (although the cost of living in Juarez is nearly that of El Paso), risk their lives daily with the photographs they take, alienating themselves from the local governments in both Juarez and El Paso, the police, the drug traffickers, and the gangs.brbrIt is all too easy for the American media (and, consequently, the American public) to ignore the plight of the almost two million residents of a city seemingly so distant and foreign, yet the brutal irony is that many of these people-- our not-so-distant neighbors-- suffer directly from the effects of our "progress." Many Mexicans continue to work in subhuman conditions, with little hope of lifting themselves out of grinding poverty.brbrWhile Charles Bowden presents a riveting investigation of Juarez, its inhabitants, and its visual chroniclers, the renowned activist and writer Noam Chomsky offers in his introduction a bitingly critical account of NAFTA, suggesting its nullifying effect on democracy and the rights of both workers and consumers, and its underlying strategy for protecting the rich and powerful, and keeping everyone else in his or her place. In his afterword, the Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano poses the question: Should the Third World really aspire to be more like the First World? His insider's look at contemporary North/South American relations reveals how the relationship between Juarez and El Paso can serve as a metaphor for U.S.-Latin American relations, and demonstrates the devastating toll United States policy and attitude knowingly take on human rights and the environment south of our border.br/div

Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews... Disturbing but I loved it September 20, 2005 1 out of 3 found this review helpful This was originally in The New Yorker years ago, but I just got the book. Bowden provides a voice to the voiceless here, as we see the work of the photographers of Juarez. Content is king here, and it seems like they are witness to the apocalypse. One could get into the politics involved here and border issues, but I'd prefer to ignore that...its just a lovely book.br /br /Great word and image combination that is as disturbing as it is thought provoking, all politics aside. Painful and brilliant portrayal October 15, 2004 9 out of 9 found this review helpful "Lost in Juarez and its eastertime too", Bob Dylan shrieks and after reading Bowden's masterpeice you can feel the connection. This is one of those efforts that stay with the reader long after the book is put down. It's haunting photos and depictions are hard to forget. From the pictures of the forgotten dead to the photo of a young wife bending over her husband who had just shot on a busy Juarez street. It is said that photographs don't lie, however, sometimes they tell an awful truth. Bowden captures the futility and danger of Juarez in every photo and what makes this effort unique is that the prose accompanying the photos actually enhances the effect. Wonderful work. Heartbreaking July 19, 2004 8 out of 8 found this review helpful I am speechless. The book is amazingly grueling. Rather than an attack on Juarez, it is an attack, a challenge to our humanity, hoping that we wake up and see the horrors so that we may stop them. Distorted, pessimistic view of Cd. Juarez January 28, 2001 19 out of 48 found this review helpful This book focuses on all the ugly and evil aspects of this border town, and omits anything positive about the place. If you are a reader who has not spent considerable time working or living in Cd. Juarez, this book will grossly distort reality and scare you from setting foot into Mexico. I almost want to write a photo-book myself of all the virtues of the place. Yes, Juarez has it's share of problems, but as the citizens will tell you, things are always getting better. The writing seems very politically motivated, and definitely one-sided. I think someone could write a book just as disturbing while only focusing on slums in american cities. This book doesnt give Cd. Juarez a fair shake. But if you like photos of dead bodies, you will still enjoy this book. Painfully real pictures May 31, 2000 17 out of 17 found this review helpful I've twice been to the Colonia's of Cd. Juarez. I have not, thank God, witnessed the violence. pI have seen the poverty. pThe photographs in Juarez, the laboratory of our future are painful to view. The work of skilled local photographers, the pictures jump from the pages and into your heart. Life in a Colonia is a nightmare.pAs the text makes clear, the causes of the poverty and violence are complex. But it is certain that we, the consumers of cheap goods, are adding to the pain when we buy the product output of Juarez, but bar the producers from escaping their Hell. The people in the Colonias are living lives very the close to those suffered by WWII slave laborers in Europe and elsewhere. pWhere are the liberation forces?

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