My new favorite book is Eduardo Galeano's Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone (2009, Nation Books). In Mirrors, Galeano exhumes the mass graves of the previously unknown who have salted this earth. Using the art of brevity, the authors holds up a mirror that shows us reflections of humanity's ghosts, the images of international vampires. He reveals the toil of angels.
Innumerable paragraphs stand alone as literary gems and chronicle the ethereal nature of mankind as both an inspiration and a toxicity. None escape Galeano's scrutiny. Not as races, nations, tribes, nor as individuals. Mirrors astounds with stories of Africans, Mayans, Anglicans, Indians and others. More compelling, however, are tales of arrogance, hubris, irony, nobility, happenstance, hate and love. Indeed Mirrors may be an anecdote for the banal education that inoculates the youth of nations. A stimulant for legions of uninspired school children who rarely find any wonder in the antiseptic antholgies, standard in public education.
Eduardo Geleano gives proof that all nations have blood stained banners. And while imperfect, individual liberty and considerate stewardship over the earth are the only cleansers.
