A thousand years of Latin American history, told through the three obsessions that have held the region tightly in its grip. Arana's timely and excellent volume is not a history. It's not one of those cultural safaris one often sees substituted for thoughtful writing about global regions. Her book is a combination of stories, journalism, history and most important, insight... Arana gives us an epic story of stories - of regions conjoined by desire for treasure, power and control, and of the emotional mortar which binds people together through endurance.