The year 1879 marked the beginning of one of the longest, bloodiest conflicts of nineteenth-century Latin America. The War of the Pacific pitted Peru and Bolivia against Chile in a struggle initiated over a festering border dispute. The conflict saw Chile's and Peru's armored warships vying for control of sea lanes and included one of the first examples of the use of naval torpedoes.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A harrowing, moving memoir of the 1972 plane crash that left its survivors stranded on a glacier in the Andes—and one man’s quest to lead them all home—now in a special edition for 2022, commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the crash, featuring a new introduction by the author “In straightforward, staggeringly honest prose, Nando Parrado tells us what it took—and what it actually felt like—to survive high in the Andes for seventy-two days after having been given up for dead.”—Jon Krakauer, author of Into the Wild “In the first hours there was nothing, no fear or sadness, just a black and perfect silence.” Nando Parrado was unconscious for three days before he woke to discover that the plane carrying his rugby team to Chile had crashed deep in the Andes, killing many of his teammates, his mother, and his sister. Stranded with the few remaining survivors on a lifeless glacier and thinking constantly of his father’s grief, Parrado resolved that he could not simply wait to die. So Parrado, an ordinary young man with no particular disposition for leadership or heroism, led an expedition up the treacherous slopes of a snowcapped mountain and across forty-five miles of frozen wilderness in an attempt to save his friends’ lives as well as his own. Decades after the disaster, Parrado tells his story with remarkable candor and depth of feeling. Miracle in the Andes, a first-person account of the crash and its aftermath, is more than a riveting tale of true-life adventure; it is a revealing look at life at the edge of death and a meditation on the limitless redemptive power of love.

This ecological history of peasant society in the Peruvian Andes focuses on the politics of irrigation and water management in three villages whose terraces and canal systems date back to Inca times. Set in a remote valley, the book tells a story of domination and resulting social decline, showing how basic changes in the use of land, water, and labor have been pivotal in transforming the indigenous way of life. The author carries out a comparison of contemporary practices in communities that vary systematically along certain dimensions. He analyzes the communities’ similarities and differences in hydraulic organization, landscaping, water use, and other variables. Strikingly diverse patterns appear in local practice, which prove to be the key to unraveling the area’s history. The book concludes by describing the recent intensification of a water conflict. This struggle between peasants and former landlords ultimately led villagers to rise up against the national government. The story culminates in the violent intrusion of the revolutionary group known as Shining Path.

This moody murder mystery set during an overnight train journey in 1950s South America “delights like strong coffee savored in a cosmopolitan cafe” (Publishers Weekly). In 1952, a train makes its way from La Paz, Bolivia, to the Chilean seaport of Arica. Among the passengers are: a businessman with his much-younger wife, a man in priest’s garb hiding a secret, Irish and Russian expatriates, a miner, and a student. Before the trip is over, there will be many revelations—including the identity of a killer. From the author of American Visa, a winner of Bolivia’s National Book Prize, this atmospheric novel is “part social commentary, part mystery thriller . . . A chilling, tragic tale” (MultiCultural Review).

Dr. Roberto Canessa recounts his side of the famous 1972 plane crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 in the Andean Mountains and how, decades later, the harrowing journey to survive propelled him to become one of the world’s leading pediatric cardiologists, seeing in his patients the same fierce will to live he witnessed in the Andes. As he tended to his wounded Old Christians teammates amidst the devastating carnage, rugby player Roberto Canessa, a second-year medical student at the time, realized that no one on earth was luckier: he was alive—and for that, he should be eternally grateful. As the starving group struggled beyond the limits of what seemed possible, Canessa played a key role in safeguarding his fellow survivors, eventually trekking with a companion across the hostile mountain range for help. No one could have imagined that there were survivors from the accident in such extreme conditions. Canessa's extraordinary experience on the fine line between life and death became the catalyst for the rest of his life. This uplifting tale of hope and determination, solidarity and ingenuity, gives vivid insight into the world-famous story that inspired the movie Alive! Canessa also draws a unique and fascinating parallel between his work as a doctor diagnosing very complex congenital cardiopathies in unborn and newborn infants and the difficult life-changing decisions he was forced to make in the Andes. With grace and humanity, Canessa prompts us to ask ourselves: what do you do when all the odds are stacked against you?

"Kim MacQuarrie tells ... stories of South America's history, from Butch Cassidy to Che Guevara to cocaine king Pablo Escobar to the last survivor of an Indian tribe, all ... set in the Andes Mountains"--

The 25th Anniversary ebook, now with more than 50 images. 'Touching the Void' is the tale of two mountaineer’s harrowing ordeal in the Peruvian Andes. In the summer of 1985, two young, headstrong mountaineers set off to conquer an unclimbed route. They had triumphantly reached the summit, when a horrific accident mid-descent forced one friend to leave another for dead. Ambition, morality, fear and camaraderie are explored in this electronic edition of the mountaineering classic, with never before seen colour photographs taken during the trip itself.