Author Ben Dangl Discusses His Book 'Dancing with Dynamite'

On March 9, 2011 the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts welcomes renowned author Benjamin Dangl to the MCCLA theater to read from his most recent book, Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America.

In the past decade, grassroots social movements played major roles in electing left-leaning governments throughout Latin America, but subsequent relations between the streets and the states remain uneasy. In Dancing with Dynamite, award-winning journalist Benjamin Dangl explores the complex ways these movements have worked with, against, and independently of national governments. From dynamite-wielding miners in Bolivia to the struggles of landless farmers in Brazil and Paraguay, Dangl discusses the dance between movements and states in seven different Latin American countries.

Praise for "Dancing with Dynamite":
"Ben Dangl breaks the sound barrier, exploding many myths about Latin America that are all-too-often amplified by the corporate media in the United States. Read this much-needed book."
-Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now!

"Dancing with Dynamite dares to navigate the cloudy waters of Latin American social movements in the wake of the neoliberal wave, something which increasingly fewer thinkers and activists dare to do, but which turns out to be urgent."
-Raul Zibechi, Uruguayan journalist and author.

Author Bio: Benjamin Dangl has published on Latin America in the Guardian Unlimited, The Nation, and the NACLA Report on the Americas. He is the author of The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia, the editor of TowardFreedom.com and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. He teaches South American history and globalization at Burlington College.