4 out of 5 stars

The publisher provided a copy of this, free of charge, in return for an honest review.

South America is much less written about than the Northern part of the continent. Meghji hope in this book to address this deficiency by writing about the British influence (and control and coercion; usual story) in the region.

He begins the book in Argentina, a country that we went to war with in the 1980s over the Falkland Islands. HE describes how the British shaped the country, so much so that almost no one there likes the English. The Scots, Welsh and Irish people and cultures that are still there are liked though…

His next stop is Uruguay. Another country that has suffered from excessive British influence since the early 1800s. I liked finding out about the place, as there are very few books about the country, especially travel books, though I do have a copy of The Purple Land that I really must read. Again, Meghji mixes a potted history of the country with a contemporary view as he travels around it.

For me, personally, the name Patagonia has a similar exotic feel as Zanzibar. It is evocative, though the reality of living there is very different to our perceptions of the place.

There is a small part of Patagonia that is forever Wales. Known as Y Wladfa, it was founded in the 1860s after 153 people had left Wales with the intention of starting a new life. It was incredibly tough to begin with, but they stuck with it. They survived with the help of the local people, who taught them how to hunt. And it is still going. Meghji arrived there by bus. He tours the museum to fill in the gaps in his knowledge of the place. It is a fascinating place, and he unpacks their story in this chapter.

In the Chilean part of Patagonia, he joins a Puma tracker. He learns how they can disappear into this landscape; they will know that you are there, but you will never see them, even when really close. Meghji discovers more about the troubled and often traumatic history of the place. He follows the threads of occupation and learns more about the trauma that affected the locals, and how the British caused and influenced this. It is horrendous as I’d come to expect.

In the hilariously titled chapter ‘Two Men Fighting Over a Comb’, Meghji visits the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. I remember the Falklands War in the 1980s and the patriotism that was stirred up as we took military action to take back these remote islands. We won that war, and the Argentinian government fell after, but the legacy lives on. We still have a military base there, and the Argentinian’s would still like them back; the swirling of geopolitics never really ends. South Georgia is even more remote, and visiting there is a reminder of how much we have devastated the natural world in the past, and probably would do so again, given half a chance. Bloody horrific.

Tiera de Fuego is rightly titled the end of the world. It is a bleak and harsh environment where some people still made their home, though in the usual way, these people were considered savages by incoming Westerners, rather than being considered innovative and adaptable. This was probably the reason they could then justify the cruel and brutal treatment that they dished out to the people there. Meghji travels as far south as he can by road, which is frozen by the weather, and notes just how quickly the weather can change in this part of the world. He unpacks some of the history of the place and learns about a missionary family that came over with the intention of converting the locals.

Rapa Nui, or as the rest of the world knows it, Easter Island, is a tiny scrap of land in the vast Pacific. How anyone managed to find it is beyond me. It is often used as an example of how using all the resources up condemns a society to collapse. As usual, the British turned up and purloined a number of items. They have so far resisted calls from the people still there to return these stolen items to their rightful place.

The thinnest country of Chile, has had a tumultuous past. There was the brutal dictatorship of Pinochet, a particularly nasty individual, who with his henchmen, tormented the country and the people. Reaching further back in the history of the country, you will find British influence and control over the most valuable resources of the country. These were exploited as much as the locals were neglected. Reading stories like this is a reminder of why we are not universally liked around the world.

The Atacama Desert is one of the driest places on the planet, sometimes having less than 1mm of rain a year. Even so, it was still home to a substantial number of people who knew how to make a living in the region. Meghji discovers the antics that the British got up to. They backed the unsavoury people as usual, with the interest in profit and making money rather than having the slightest care about people’s lives and their families.

This was an enlightening read in lots of ways. I knew the odd thing about South American history from the occasional book that I had read in the past. However, I had no idea quite how extensive British influence was in the region, and to be honest, having now read this book, most of what we did there in the past was pretty appalling. Meghji’s prose is written in a dispassionate way, he wants to present the facts and leave me, the reader, with enough information to make an informed decision about what happened there and to whom. The facts do not make for pleasant reading, though, so you can imagine what I think of this…

If the book had one flaw, for me at least, I didn’t think that there was enough about Meghji’s travels in the region. The history he recounts is important, but I felt that it dominated the narrative a little too much. That said, context is important and knowing how people are in the situation that they are in today, we need to know where they started and the things that have happened to them. If you are a fan of geopolitics, then this would be right up your street. However, if you are hoping that there would be more descriptions about the travel, then it might not be for you. However, if you have any interest in South America, then I would highly recommend this book.

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