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19th out of 66 books
—
16 voters
Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone
Throughout his career, Eduardo Galeano has turned our understanding of history and reality on its head. Isabelle Allende said his works �invade the reader’s mind, to persuade him or her to surrender to the charm of his writing and power of his idealism.”Mirrors, Galeano’s most ambitious project since Memory of Fire, is an unofficial history of the world seen through histor...more
Hardcover, 391 pages
Published
May 26th 2009
by Nation Books
(first published February 1st 2008)
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هناك تعبيرٌ يسمّى بالإنجليزية
"My Bible"
وهو يطلق على كتاب الشخص المفضّل
الكتاب الذي لامس روحه ، وعقله ، وقلبه
والكتاب الذي يمكنك القول أنّه يسير على هُداه
أرى أنَّ هذا الكتاب جداً يقتربُ من هذه الفكرة
فهو ليس كتاباً عاديّاً أبداً
وشعرتُ وأنا أقرأه أنه كُتِبَ خصّيصاً لي
إدواردو جاليانو هو ملاكٌ عطري
فتارةَ تنتشي بالمسك ،، وتارةً تنغمر في هدوء اللافندر
مع إدواردو جاليانو ،، تغرّد العصافير ألحاناً لم تسمعها قبلاً ،، وينزف العندليب كما لم ترى قبلاً
من البداية كنتُ ببطءٍ أنصهر
أذوب في المحتوى الغيرِ عا...more
"My Bible"
وهو يطلق على كتاب الشخص المفضّل
الكتاب الذي لامس روحه ، وعقله ، وقلبه
والكتاب الذي يمكنك القول أنّه يسير على هُداه
أرى أنَّ هذا الكتاب جداً يقتربُ من هذه الفكرة
فهو ليس كتاباً عاديّاً أبداً
وشعرتُ وأنا أقرأه أنه كُتِبَ خصّيصاً لي
إدواردو جاليانو هو ملاكٌ عطري
فتارةَ تنتشي بالمسك ،، وتارةً تنغمر في هدوء اللافندر
مع إدواردو جاليانو ،، تغرّد العصافير ألحاناً لم تسمعها قبلاً ،، وينزف العندليب كما لم ترى قبلاً
من البداية كنتُ ببطءٍ أنصهر
أذوب في المحتوى الغيرِ عا...more
غاليانو من الكتّاب الذين عرفتهم و أحببتهم هذا العام
لذلك سيرتبط عندي عام 2012 بغاليانو العظيم
في مرايا غاليانو ظهر لي كم إن هذا العالم ممتلىء بالشرور حقيقة لا يمكن أن تخفى على أحد ولكن جمعها هكذا متتالية من كل مكان يبدو كثيرا جدا !
في الكتاب جُرد العالم وذلك
منذ بدأ الخليقة
( خلقنا من رغبة )
ومن تاريخ العالم عبر تفاصيل في المجتمع والسياسة والتاريخ للرياضة للموسيقى للمجاعة للعنف بكافة أشكاله للعنصرية يضع المرايا العاكسة لتحكي ماقد غفل عنه الآخرين من الشرق للغرب من الشمال للجنوب
مرايا ذات أهمية ثقا...more
14 likes · like · see review
Eduardo Galeano is one of Uruguay's best known writers; his moment of fame in the United States came when Hugo Chávez presented Barack Obama with a copy of Galeano's Open Veins of Latin America at the Summit of the Americas; when a military junta ruled the writer's native country, it imprisoned him and banned his books. This book is a collection of some 600 mini-essays, most a few paragraphs long: a history of the humanity with a focus on the oppression of the poor by the rich, of the working cl...more
I read Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy in college, and it's always stayed with me, so I'm very excited to read this.
I didn't get to finish this (14 day book again) But what I read was excellent. Galeano focuses on the poor, women and all of those that history tends to forget in short, beautiful little vignettes.
I didn't get to finish this (14 day book again) But what I read was excellent. Galeano focuses on the poor, women and all of those that history tends to forget in short, beautiful little vignettes.
The fact that the top reviews here are not in Latin script tells you something about the book. With this book, an incomplete history of the modern era, Galeano explores the obscure, the arcane, the suppressed, the aphorisms, the anecdotes, etc. all while deploying a powerful critique of Power. Because the book is broken into fragmentary history, I was able to devour it rapidly, but not lightly. Being a student of the oppressed, I was familiar with many of the tales here, and while most were new...more
History is perhaps the most flawed edifice that has been handed down and been added to by successive generations of the world. It works by the magical illusion that it is sacrosanct, unquestionable and impartial. We forget that it is merely a construction at the hands of equally flawed mortals at the rest of us who were guided by ideologies of their own. Mirrors is an arrow aimed at every one of these suppositions in order to destroy history’s illusory armour.
Mirrors is written in the style tha...more
This is my current bedside book. It replaces William T. Vollman's 'The Atlas.'
For a long, long time, I read The Bible or The Way of Zen before bed. It was a nice preparation for prayer or meditation. This stopped being a good plan a few years back- I'm so tired by bedtime that I'm asleep within minutes. Blame SSRI's. Blame my career.
As a replacement- I followed WTV's reccommendation in the forward of 'The Atlas.' Keep a wide-open book by your bedside. Something you can dart into for five minut...more
For a long, long time, I read The Bible or The Way of Zen before bed. It was a nice preparation for prayer or meditation. This stopped being a good plan a few years back- I'm so tired by bedtime that I'm asleep within minutes. Blame SSRI's. Blame my career.
As a replacement- I followed WTV's reccommendation in the forward of 'The Atlas.' Keep a wide-open book by your bedside. Something you can dart into for five minut...more
Jun 23, 2009
Sara-Maria Sorentino
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
adam, steph, naeem, jack, charliee, all the people,
Recommended to Sara-Maria by:
alan
Shelves:
non-fiction-important
a sporadic sampling:
-Water and light-
Back in the year 1600-something, sculptor Luis de la Pena wanted to sculpt light. In his workshop on an alley in Granada, he spent his entire life trying and failing.
It never occurred to him to look up. There, on the crest of a hill of red earth, other artists had sculpted light, and water too. In the turrets and gardens of the Alhambra, crown of the Muslim kingdom, those artists had made the impossible possible.
The Alhambra is not a stationary sculpture. It...more
-Water and light-
Back in the year 1600-something, sculptor Luis de la Pena wanted to sculpt light. In his workshop on an alley in Granada, he spent his entire life trying and failing.
It never occurred to him to look up. There, on the crest of a hill of red earth, other artists had sculpted light, and water too. In the turrets and gardens of the Alhambra, crown of the Muslim kingdom, those artists had made the impossible possible.
The Alhambra is not a stationary sculpture. It...more
Mirrors reminded me very much of Zinn's People's History of the United States, except with a greater sense of poetry and style, and a scope covering the entire globe from the beginning of time.
Galeano presents hundreds of tiny historical and mythological nuggets, mostly focused on systematic oppression and all the effed up shiz you didn't learn in history class.
Besides going in chronological order, these stories are not linear at all. Thus, this is not really much of a page-turner. However, pat...more
Galeano presents hundreds of tiny historical and mythological nuggets, mostly focused on systematic oppression and all the effed up shiz you didn't learn in history class.
Besides going in chronological order, these stories are not linear at all. Thus, this is not really much of a page-turner. However, pat...more
Jun 15, 2009
AJ Conroy
marked it as to-read
NPR Recommendation:
Imagine Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, but penned by a poet and expanded to include the history of the entire world. Framed in inventively organized tiny vignettes — most just a paragraph or two long — Eduardo Galeano's Mirrors explodes our ideas of history in both content and form.
Fiercely political and fiercely human, Mirrors is a feast for the browser, armchair historian, poet and activist. Galeano rewrites the histories of the forgotten and the un...more
Imagine Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, but penned by a poet and expanded to include the history of the entire world. Framed in inventively organized tiny vignettes — most just a paragraph or two long — Eduardo Galeano's Mirrors explodes our ideas of history in both content and form.
Fiercely political and fiercely human, Mirrors is a feast for the browser, armchair historian, poet and activist. Galeano rewrites the histories of the forgotten and the un...more
from "Caves"
"Stalactites and stalagmites spend thousands of years reaching down or reaching up, drop by drop, searching for each other in the darkness.
It takes some of them a million years to touch.
They are in no hurry" (2).
from "How Could We?"
"Weren't we able to survive, when survival was all but impossible, because we learned to share our food and band together for defense? Would today's me-first, do-your-own-thing civilization have lasted more than a moment?" (4).
from "Ages"
"Monsters tha...more
"Stalactites and stalagmites spend thousands of years reaching down or reaching up, drop by drop, searching for each other in the darkness.
It takes some of them a million years to touch.
They are in no hurry" (2).
from "How Could We?"
"Weren't we able to survive, when survival was all but impossible, because we learned to share our food and band together for defense? Would today's me-first, do-your-own-thing civilization have lasted more than a moment?" (4).
from "Ages"
"Monsters tha...more
I've been puttering around inside of Mirrors for about two years. It's not a book that has to be read cover to cover, or even sequentially. Subtitled: Stories of Almost Everyone, it's a collection of prose poems that are vignettes of the human condition throughout history. What is our condition? By this telling, with which I tend to agree, it's a struggle for power and resources in which the rich get richer, the poor poorer, and justice never quite prevails.
The Philadelphia Inquirer blurb does i...more
The Philadelphia Inquirer blurb does i...more
Mirrors are filled with people.
The invisible see us.
The forgotten recall us.
When we see ourselves, we see them.
When we turn away, do they?
Eduardo Galeano, famed Uruguayan journalist and author, has said of himself, “I’m a writer obsessed with remembering, with remembering the past of America above all and above all that of Latin America, intimate land condemned to amnesia.” That credo has been ably demonstrated throughout works spanning four decades, including Open Veins of Latin America, the Me...more
4 likes · like · see review
I just read this book in 4 days. I was completely absorbed, even though I could feel that awkwardness that comes from reading an English translation of something that must have been more lyrical and nuanced in the original Spanish. This book is so important. It will make you smarter in a revolutionary way.
The syndrome that consumes our world and has been shaping our history is illuminated here through small vignettes of forgotten stories and overlooked perspectives.
I am deeply grateful for this...more
The syndrome that consumes our world and has been shaping our history is illuminated here through small vignettes of forgotten stories and overlooked perspectives.
I am deeply grateful for this...more
History, as stories. History, from the beginning, sort of, with a poetic re-working of Genesis and ending as the new century enters at stage right, despairing from what's come before. History, as examined by a cynic, skeptic, artist, lover, collector, judge. History, without all the commercials and talking and stuff. History, that is simplistic, selective, apocryphal and occasionally wrong, and necessary for all of that. History, that grabs you by the lapels or the scruff of the neck and yells,...more
1 like · like · see review
جولة جميلة بين تاريخ العوالم والأساطير والخرافات والحروب والأدباء والروايات وكل شيء تقريبا
...
هذا الكتاب يعتبر كمرجع معلوماتي جيد فهو لم يقتصر على ذكر التاريخ الغربي فقط بل حتى العربي منه
كل معلومة تذكر بعنوان رئيسي لها وفي عدة أسطر هكذا تلتهم أكبر قدر من الحكايات دون أن تشعر بالملل
...
لكن أمريكا اللاتينية كان لها نصيب الأسد في هذا الكتاب
البرازيل والأرجنتين والأورغواي وغيرها
الأساطير اليونانية والإغريقية والخرافات العجيبة
كان من الملاحظ فيها أن النساء والجنوبين على مدى عصور طويلة كانو ا من المهمشين و...more
...
هذا الكتاب يعتبر كمرجع معلوماتي جيد فهو لم يقتصر على ذكر التاريخ الغربي فقط بل حتى العربي منه
كل معلومة تذكر بعنوان رئيسي لها وفي عدة أسطر هكذا تلتهم أكبر قدر من الحكايات دون أن تشعر بالملل
...
لكن أمريكا اللاتينية كان لها نصيب الأسد في هذا الكتاب
البرازيل والأرجنتين والأورغواي وغيرها
الأساطير اليونانية والإغريقية والخرافات العجيبة
كان من الملاحظ فيها أن النساء والجنوبين على مدى عصور طويلة كانو ا من المهمشين و...more
1 like · like · see review
I read Eduardo Galeano's Memory of Fire trilogy when I was in my late teens. I wore it with pride, as it seemed to represent a lot of what I wanted to be. As a young lefty, that someone had rewritten the history of the world from the view of the oppressed, had uncovered alternative narratives, and infused them with a passion for social justice, was a lovely gift. And politics aside, the amazing myth-telling from the first of trilogy, with the origins of the earth and peoples and languages, was p...more
May 14, 2013
Sarah
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Shelves:
nonfiction,
history,
short-stories,
essays,
library-checkouts,
folklore,
mythology,
ancient-egypt,
ancient-greece,
latin-american,
ancient-rome,
women,
middle-east,
china,
soccer,
spain,
war,
wwii,
germany,
holocaust,
art,
music,
politics,
russia,
religion,
india,
britain,
africa,
slavery,
depressing
So I've seen this book described as A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present expanded to cover the history of the whole world, and that's a pretty apt description. However, if I had to describe my personal feelings about it, I'd say: "This is why humanity can't have nice things." Seriously, we're a bunch of greedy stupid jerks, when we're not being downright evil to each other. And we're terrible at being compassionate, at least collectively - doesn't matter how many bad things h...more
Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone was a truly original reading experience. It was great- not the best i've ever had, but it was something special. By the end of the first page I realized that every passage, though intertwined, would teach me something, and this was an opportunity that I would be a fool to pass up. Through the hundreds of notes littering my book as it is finally complete, I can say that it is somewhat like the religious texts it so loves to deject. In the same way that Mirrors...more
We Americans seem to have a fascination for history viewed from the lives of, generally, great men. It is a reflection of our commitment to the National myth of the rugged individual: the rugged, self-energized individual leads the parade, determining who marches and where and how the crowd will go. That bedrock belief has led to the growing popularity in recent years of biographies, to the publication of works, for example, on the Founding Fathers, Jackson, Lincoln. These and similar giants of...more
العالم,الحقيقة,الصدق حين ينبع من الكذبة,أنا أكذب انت تكذب تروق لنا الكذبة نتجمل بها ثم نضحك خلف المرايا بخبث لأن الجارة صدقتنا, ثورات,أدب , فن, دين,دول ,متاهات,و الكثير الكثير من الاشخاص عرفناهم لم نعرفهم صدقناهم اهناهم صنعنا تماثيل عبدناها حطمنا اخرى بدون اكتراث,,ألفنا كتب أحرقنا أخرى,قتلنا غزونا , أكلنا جعنا,سرقنا وهبنا,صممنا نسفنا,انتصرنا انهزمنا,أفعال ىثمة أفعال مقدسة,سلة فواكه طازجة اخترعها التاريخ على يد غاليانو تعفنت و سقطت تدرحرجت الفاكهة تحت أقدامنا أزلنا الأذى عن الطريق و نظرنا للمرآة...more
10 likes · like · see review
Galeano's subtitle for this book is "stories of almost everyone". Which appeals to me, since I'm always pursuing the un-written or less-commonly-written histories. But this is not one of those. It is a great retelling of the gods and kings and fighters of the world, but there are few stories about people whose name you wouldn't recognize. This is a great, concise, entertaining story of world history written from an alternative perspective, but there are no unwritten histories here.
HANDS. DOWN. ONE. OF. MY. NEW. FAVORITE. BOOKS!!!
You must read Eduardo Galeano’s Mirrors. I demand it. I picked it up on a fluke and was bound in its magic all weekend. It’s a distilled version of world history that covers everything more poetically, and with more sarcasm (just the way I like it). It’s history, but from different perspectives and in manageable bits and pieces. There isn’t much else to say except that I thought it was brilliant.
You must read Eduardo Galeano’s Mirrors. I demand it. I picked it up on a fluke and was bound in its magic all weekend. It’s a distilled version of world history that covers everything more poetically, and with more sarcasm (just the way I like it). It’s history, but from different perspectives and in manageable bits and pieces. There isn’t much else to say except that I thought it was brilliant.
If you want a history of the world as if you were sitting by a campfire listening to a timeless, ageless sage spinning the (true) stories of past ages, then read this book. Hundreds of vignettes tracing the history of our culture from before time to the present day. Beautifully written. No holds barred on cruel details of what we humans can do. Greed. Money. Religion. Love. Invention. Fascinating accounts. Read this book!!!
1 like · like · see review
Mirrors is a highly poetic, highly emotional, and highly depressing collection of vignettes chronicling the past 5000 or so years of human turmoil and tragedy.
Some stories are uplifting, most are controversial, and all cry out to be read, discussed, and remembered. These are stories of origins, rulers, divinities, religions, scientific abuses and discoveries, mythologies, families, horrors, tragedies, successes, nature, man, woman, child, technology, popes, tsars, serfs... and to neglect their s...more
Some stories are uplifting, most are controversial, and all cry out to be read, discussed, and remembered. These are stories of origins, rulers, divinities, religions, scientific abuses and discoveries, mythologies, families, horrors, tragedies, successes, nature, man, woman, child, technology, popes, tsars, serfs... and to neglect their s...more
أبتـاه , ارسم لي العالم على جسدي.
" غنـاء لسكان داكوتا الجنوبيّة الأصليين "
المرايا ممتلئة بالناس
اللامرئيون يروننا
المنسيّون يتذكروناا
عندما نرى أنفسنا , نراهم.
وعندما نغادر , هل يغادرون؟ *
رغم أني أرى الكتاب شبه مرجع بيد أنه لا ذِكر لمصادر ولا مراجع ببلوغرافية و قد نوّه غاليانو بذلك في مقدمته و علَّل ذلك لطولها و قد تأخذ حيّز أوسع من القصص ذاتها !
الكتاب يحوي قرابة 600 قصّة شكّلت : مرايا : ما يُشبه تاريخاً للعالم ,
عوالمٌ كثيرة يتضمّنها العالم كتب فيما كتب غاليانو عن خفايا العوالم عن البدايات و عن...more
Galeano tells the history of the world in 600 stories over 300 pages. The title is not for nothing: the stories he sets out to tell--of the have-nots, the forgotten, and the silenced--really do mirror each other...and that doesn't necessarily make for a ripping-good read. By page 100 I found myself asking "but why??" Why are people so mean to each other? Why does life suck so much for some people and not others? Basically, I wanted to be reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. Or any book with a beginni...more
The library just told me that my turn has come for this book. Can't wait -- Galeano is one of my favorite authors!
This author is brilliant -- if you have read his trilogy about Latin America, Memory of Fire, you know his unique style of using anecdotes of everyone from the humblest shoe peddler in El Salvador to the overthrown President of Chile to weave a rich tapestry of life through the centuries. Well, Mirrors uses the same technique but takes on nothing less than the history of the world --...more
This author is brilliant -- if you have read his trilogy about Latin America, Memory of Fire, you know his unique style of using anecdotes of everyone from the humblest shoe peddler in El Salvador to the overthrown President of Chile to weave a rich tapestry of life through the centuries. Well, Mirrors uses the same technique but takes on nothing less than the history of the world --...more
أبتاه، إرسم لي العالم على جسدي (غناء لسكان داكوتا الجنوبية الاصليين)
"النساء والرجال ولدوا من طين ضفاف نهري دجلة والفرات.
من ذلك الطين صُنعت كذلك كتب الحكايات
وحسب ما تقوله تلك الكتب، الموت يعني العودة إلى الطين"
"أنت تطفئ ظمأ القطعان كلها.
أنت تشرب دموع العيون كلها.
انهض أيها النيل، وليهدد صوتك!
فليُسمع صوتك!"
"هذا الاختراع (الكتابة) سيُنتج النسيان، فالحكمة في الحقيقة، وليس في مظهرها. لا يمكن التذكر بذاكرة مستعارة. البشر يسجلون ، ولكنهم لا يتذكرون. يرددون ، ولكنهم لا يعيشون. يعلمون بأشياء كثيرة، ولكنهم...more
"النساء والرجال ولدوا من طين ضفاف نهري دجلة والفرات.
من ذلك الطين صُنعت كذلك كتب الحكايات
وحسب ما تقوله تلك الكتب، الموت يعني العودة إلى الطين"
"أنت تطفئ ظمأ القطعان كلها.
أنت تشرب دموع العيون كلها.
انهض أيها النيل، وليهدد صوتك!
فليُسمع صوتك!"
"هذا الاختراع (الكتابة) سيُنتج النسيان، فالحكمة في الحقيقة، وليس في مظهرها. لا يمكن التذكر بذاكرة مستعارة. البشر يسجلون ، ولكنهم لا يتذكرون. يرددون ، ولكنهم لا يعيشون. يعلمون بأشياء كثيرة، ولكنهم...more
4 likes · like · see review
I really wanted to like this book, but didn't. It's a large set of half-page vignettes, little stories and fables. This is a format that I just can't wrap my head around. Even short stories (I mean, typical 10 page short stories) begin to annoy me after three or four. Hundreds of micro-stories soon became pure torture. Don't get me wrong: the writing is excellent, there's a sort of liberation theme running through the book. But there's no actual narrative flow. Maybe it's a postmodern thing. I d...more
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Eduardo Hughes Galeano is a Uruguayan journalist, writer and novelist. His best known works are Memoria del fuego (Memory of Fire Trilogy, 1986) and Las venas abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America, 1971) which have been translated into twenty languages and transcend orthodox genres: combining fiction, journalism, political analysis, and history.
The author himself has proclaimed...more
More about Eduardo Hughes Galeano...
The author himself has proclaimed...more
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تسلمي إقبال :)
May 22, 2013 03:48pm
وشكراً :)"
http://www.4shared.com/office/4JeyHtg...
May 22, 2013 03:50pm