ABSTRACT
In the 1980s and 1990s, the international media coverage of Latin American development painted a very negative picture of a continent mired in growing poverty and inequality, intractable civil wars, massive social unrest and escalating external debt. Of course, as this book has emphasized, everyday life in the region was far more complex and diverse and even during the hardest decades there were many positive ways in which low-income Latin Americans found dignity and happiness. But for many outside the region, an impression of hopelessness often prevailed.
