Liverpool, Reino Unido, 1960
A graduate of the London School of Economics, Andy Robinson moved to Catalonia at the end of the eighties, and began a career in journalism writing for The Guardian, The New Statesman, City Limits, Ajoblanco, El Món and other media outlets. He then worked for the financial daily Cinco Días and Business Week in Madrid before becoming New York correspondent for La Vanguardia from 2001 to 2008. He currently works for this newspaper in Latin America and contributes to The Nation magazine in New York .
Bibliography
En estas páginas acompañamos a Andy Robinson a lo largo de diez terroríficas crónicas de viaje por América, para descubrir la cara oscura del turismo postpandémico, en la que grandes monopolios nacionales y multinacinales controlan hoteles, aerolíneas, cadenas de restaurantes o de entretenimiento, dejando a las comunidades locales al margen.
Read moreThis book revisits the still-open veins of Latin America following the dilemmas and disasters, both environmental and human, caused by the unequal economic growth of the early 21st century.
In his unforgettable Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano penned the famous quote "We Latin Americans are poor because the ground we tread is rich." That book became the Bible of a generation of left-wingers who took power in Latin America in the early 21st century, from Lula da Silva to Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Hugo Chávez. What’s happened in those countries since then?
Read moreNon-fiction
In these pages, we follow Andy Robinson through ten chilling travel chronicles across the Americas, uncovering the dark side of post-pandemic tourism—an industry increasingly dominated by national and multinational monopolies that control hotels, airlines, restaurant chains, and entertainment complexes, all while pushing local communities to the margins.
Taking off from Madrid’s dystopian mega-airport, Robinson visits iconic destinations in the United States and Latin America, revealing the disturbing realities hidden behind their brightly lit façades. All-inclusive luxury resorts built on the exploited labor—and sometimes the corpses—of workers in Cancún. The forced displacement of residents in the city of magical realism, Cartagena de Indias, and of the Mapuche community in Bariloche, all to make way for snow-loving tourists. The themed desert of Las Vegas. The Louis Vuitton luxury train to Machu Picchu that leaves Aymara vendors stranded on the platform. The culture wars at Disney World, including those waged by its overworked employees. The crumbling ruins of Amazon Towers deep in the Amazon jungle. And a host of other destinations better avoided, as the author boldly ventures into a new genre of “anti-travel literature.”
Written with biting black humor, Horror Tourism exposes the contradictions and inequalities of an industry we are all part of. After reading this book, no traveler will see tourism the same way again.
"With many years of journalistic experience, Robinson takes us not just on a sun-and-sand getaway, but into the darkest corners of the tourism industry—into the world of mass tourism that overwhelms cities and causes them to die of their own success."Alejandro Gutiérrez, former Proceso correspondent in Madrid
This book revisits the still-open veins of Latin America and the disasters, both environmental and human, caused by the scramble for resources in the early 21st century
In his classic Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo Galeano famously stated: “We Latin Americans are poor because the ground on which we tread is rich.” That book became the Bible for a generation of leftists who took power in Latin America in the early 21st century, from Lula da Silva to Evo Morales, Rafael Correa and Hugo Chávez. What has happened in those countries since then?. Where are raw materials finally consumed in a world of conspicuous consumption and extreme inequality? And what can we learn from indigenous peoples to avoid environmental destruction and meet the existential challenge of climate change?
Andy Robinson revisits in first person some of the itineraries Galeano described fifty years ago, and offers a a collection of personal chronicles overflowing with humour and clarity. Each story begins with a raw material, such as oil, gold, avocado, diamond, soy, beef or iron. The exploitation of these materials illustrates the dilema which confronts the region and its progressive movements: how to generate equitable growth and so reduce poverty and inequality while avoiding the curse of dependence on volatile and environmentally destructive raw materials. The book also sketches the relationship between 16 commodities and the coup d’etats, citizens’ rebellions and environmental crises in the recent history of Latin America.
“Five hundred years after the colonization of the Americas, the lure of new riches keeps open the veins through which coltan, oil, lithium, soy, niobium and avocados now flow ... Andy Robinson gives names and surnames to the new looters, the new holy cross, the new swords. And they are more frightening than the pirates who flew the skull and crossbones.” Juan Carlos Monedero
"A sobering and well-documented picture, shot through with Robinson’s caustic wit." Publishers Weekly
Miedo, asco y esperanza en Estados Unidos... Al estilo de su admirado periodismo gonzo, Andy Robinson se lanza a recorrer la nueva dolocracia americana a través de los márgenes de una carretera que conforme avanza se bifurca cada vez más. De un lado la ostentación megalómana, los campos de golf, las universidades de élite y los jóvenes multimillonarios de Silicon Valley. Del otro, olas de violencia racista, una población reclusa en aumento, inmigrantes sin papeles, trabajadores precarios, huracanes y sequías. Un país en el que la clase media anda en vías de extinción y donde grotescos plutócratas han tomado las riendas de la política a golpe de talonario.
Un viaje que se aleja de la ruta que recorren habitualmente los medios de comunicación y que da cuenta de las consecuencias funestas de aquella crisis global que convirtió el sueño americano en una espantosa pesadilla. Sin embargo, si algo destaca de la pluma de Robinson es su sentido del humor, optimismo e ironía, imprescindible para describir acontecimientos tan disparatados como aquella visita a España del magnate Sheldon Adelson, y que permite vislumbrar chispazos de esperanza en el discurso de personajes coimo Bill de Blasio o Bernie Sanders.
En formato de pequeñas crónicas, con el autor inmiscuyéndose en la vida diaria de los ciudadanos, el libro no sólo nos sumerge en ciudades como Nueva York, Detroit o San Francisco, emblemas de la desigualdad más descarnada, sino que nos descubre Vermont y su movimiento independentista; Albuquerque, escenario de Breaking Bad, donde francotiradores policiales matan impunemente a drogadictos e indigentes; o Nogales y Tucson, sedes de un complejo industrial de seguridad fronteriza y cárceles privadas cuyo negocio bebe de una oferta inagotable de inmigrantes deportados.
Los encuentros del Foro Económico Mundial en la diminuta población suiza que inspiró a Thomas Mann son la constatación de los males endémicos del sistema que nos gobierna. O al menos de sus incongruencias. Un ágora en la que el cinismo se viste de filantropía y el pensamiento único de debate abierto. Un lugar en el que Bono y Clinton se erigen en profetas, las estrellas del periodismo olvidan su compromiso con el público y los académicos aleccionan al personal sobre los beneficios del sistema capitalista y los males del intervencionismo ante banqueros y empresarios venidos de todo el mundo.
El reportero Andy Robinson se desplaza por el laberíntico centro de congresos, por los bares de la estación de esquí y los atascos de limusinas para averiguar cómo la élite, ese 1% más rico, se garantiza el porvenir a costa del ciudadano, apoyando medidas que sigan incrementando la polarización de las rentas y el crecimiento de su propia riqueza.
Un reportero en la montaña mágica recorre la historia de Davos, los paraísos fiscales y la farsa de la filantropía y denuncia con ironía cómo los plutócratas empujan al mundo ladera abajo mientras hacen alarde de opulencia desde la privilegiada estación alpina
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