Crossed Off the Map

Travels in Bolivia

Shafik Meghji

• Publisher: LAB (Latin America Bureau)
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9781909014275
• Topic: Personal Development

Blending travel writing, history and reportage, 'Crossed off the Map: Travels in Bolivia' journeys from the Andes to the Amazon to explore Bolivia's turbulent past and contemporary challenges. It tells the story of the country's profound and unexpected influence on the wider world over the last 500 years – fragments of history largely forgotten beyond its borders. Once home to one of the wealthiest cities on Earth, Bolivia kickstarted globalisation, helped to power Europe's economic growth and trigger dynastic collapse in China, and played host to everyone from Che Guevara to Butch Cassidy. The book also explores how ordinary Bolivians in and around the world's highest city, largest salt flat, richest silver mine and most biodiverse national park are coping with some of the touchstone issues of the 21st century: the climate emergency, populism, mass migration, indigenous rights, national identity, rapid urbanisation, and the 'war on drugs'. In its pages, award-winning journalist and travel writer Shafik Meghji illuminates the dramatic landscapes, distinct cultures and diverse peoples of a country that – in the words of one interviewee – 'was the building block of the modern world, but is now lost in time'. 'Crossed off the Map' has been shortlisted for the Edward Stanford Travel Book of the Year, the British Guild of Travel Writers Narrative Travel Book of the Year and the Great Outdoors Book of the Year.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Map of Bolivia
• Prologue: Bolivia does not exist
• 1. Before Bolivia: Indigenous cultures
• 2. The mountain that eats men: Silver, colonialism, and globalisation
• 3. Tin kings and rubber barons: Tin, rubber, and tycoons
• 4. Flat white: Lithium and salt
• 5. Amazon primed: Development projects, ecotourism, and the climate crisis
• 6. The future is behind us: Indigenous identities, migration, and urbanisation
• 7. Mission control: The Jesuit legacy in the eastern lowlands
• 8. You triumph or you die: Che Guevara
• 9. Coca si: The ‘war on drugs’ and the rise of Evo Morales
• 10. A dinosaur stampede: The past and the future
• Key sources
• About Latin America Bureau (LAB)
• Index
• Back Cover