拉丁美洲，这片富饶辽阔的土地，曾孕育出璀璨文明，为何如今却成为一个贫穷而动荡的大陆，沦为附庸？
1971年，受“依附理论”激发，乌拉圭记者、作家兼诗人爱德华多·加莱亚诺出版了这部震撼世界的《拉丁美洲被切开的血管》，试图解剖拉美的病体，探讨大陆的前途。他用难以辩驳的丰富资料，以澎湃有力的悲情笔法，铺陈出这片大陆自哥伦布开启航海新纪元之后的崎岖命运，写下一页页拉美受难史：金银、可可、棉花、橡胶、咖啡、水果、石油、铁、镍、锰、铜、锡……这些“血管”贯穿了整个拉美大陆，延伸到开阔的尽头，在那里它们流入欧洲和美国的宝库。曾经的殖民主义野蛮掠夺这片土地；而自由贸易、经济援助、合资企业、国际组织等现代文明体制同样以不文明的手段参与古老的掠夺战。拉丁美洲是一个血管被切开的地区，是拉丁美洲不发达的历史构成了世界资本主义发展的历史。
本书试图揭开拉丁美洲孤独百年的真相，也让我们聆听失败者的声音：那些追求拉美独立富强的英雄和他们失败的革命。这是整个拉丁美洲悲剧的缩影。与书中所揭示的历史被官方掩盖和篡改一样，本书在出版之后不久即遭到拉美右翼政府的禁令，然而它却以几十种语言的译本走遍世界，被一代人长久地当作叛逆拉丁美洲的象征。它的论断带着时代的烙印，它的命运却已经融入历史。

'Football is a pleasure that hurts' This unashamedly emotional history of football is a homage to the romance and drama, spectacle and passion of a 'great pagan mass'. Through stories of superstition, heartbreak, tragedy, luck, heroes and villains, those who lived for football and those who died for it, Eduardo Galeano celebrates the glory of a game that - however much the rich and powerful try to control it - still retains its magic. 'The Uruguayan whose writing got right to the heart of football ... readers were never in doubt of the warmth of the blood running through his veins' Guardian 'Galeano can run rings round our glamorous football intelligentsia' When Saturday Comes 'Stands out like Pele on a field of second-stringers' New Yorker

The electrifying effect the Zapatista peasant rebellion has had on leading figures in the intellectual, political, and literary world since the Zapatistas woke them up on New Year's Day, 1994, has provided inspiration for activists all over the world. A remarkable synergy has also developed between leading writers, novelists, and journalists and Subcomandante Marcos, the enigmatic, pipe-smoking and balaclavered leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation, who seems like a character out of a "magical realism" novel. This reader includes a wide sampling of the best of the writing to emerge on the subject. The book is a journey through an insurgent and magical world of culture and politics, where celebrants and critics debate what Carlos Fuentes has described as the world's first ‘post-communist rebellion.' Included are essays by Paco Taibo II, Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Elena Poniatowska, Ilan Stavans, Carlos Monsivais, Jorge Castenada, Jose Saramago, John Berger, Marc Cooper, Andrew Kopkind, Bill Weinberg, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alma Guillermoprieto and Eduardo Galeano.

No prefácio escrito em agosto de 2010, especialmente para esta edição de As veias abertas da América Latina, Eduardo Galeano lamenta “que o livro não tenha perdido a atualidade”. Remontando a 1970 sua primeira edição, atualizada em 1977, quando a maioria dos países do continente padecia facinorosas ditaduras, este livro tornou-se um autêntico “clássico libertário”, um inventário da dependência e da vassalagem de que a América Latina tem sido vítima, desde que aqui aportaram os europeus no final do século XV. No começo, espanhóis e portugueses. Depois vieram ingleses, holandeses, franceses, modernamente os norte-americanos, e o ancestral cenário permanece: a mesma submissão, a mesma miséria, a mesma espoliação.

As veias abertas da América Latina vendeu milhões de exemplares em todo o mundo. Com seu texto lírico e amargo a um só tempo, Galeano sabe ser suave e duro, e invariavelmente transmite, com sua consagrada maestria, uma mensagem que transborda humanismo, solidariedade e amor pela liberdade e pelos desvalidos.