Judge for yourself

As editorial director of Monthly Review Press and also a former professor at Pitt-Johnstown, I was delighted to see Sally Kalson's article "Chavez's Gift Gives Surprising Boost to Book" (April 21). The book was published by our Press and has been a steady seller for nearly four decades. I used the book as a teacher, and it always opened students' eyes.

I was amused and not a little irritated by the rather casual dismissal of the book by one of Pitt's professors. The dependency theory he refers to is really a theory of imperialism. To reject the theory, one would have to deny that the United States is an imperialist power, something no serious scholar does.

The rise of the Asian Tigers certainly does nothing to disprove the theory. It was the very closeness of these countries to the United States that allowed them to "take off," although their circumstances these days surely take some of the shine off that word. South Korea, for example, benefited enormously from its support for the war the United States waged, with maximum brutality and a horrendous death count, in Vietnam.

The Press wishes to thank Ms. Kalson for her interesting and informative piece. And we encourage people to read Eduardo Galeano's book and form their own opinions.

 

 

MICHAEL D. YATES

Boulder, Colo.