This is a work of great scope, a powerful illumination of an enigmatic figure.Told from the point of view of an ancient shaman, this is the dark and mystical story of Mexico's greatest revolutionary general, Pancho Villa. Shedding the Hollywood mantle of the drunken, womanizing bandit-turned-hero, the Villa who comes to life in this extraordinary novel is part man and part myth, part visionary hoodlum and part brilliant general.A troubled childhood--marked b...

A conversation in a prison cell sparks an ambitious undertaking to attack the roots of long-term poverty.Seeking answers to the toughest questions about poverty in the United States, Earl Shorris had looked everywhere. At last, one resounding answer came from a conversation with a woman in a maximum-security prison: the difference between rich and poor is the humanities. Shorris took that idea and started a course at the Clemente Family Guidance Center in New York....

A San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of 2004. "A work of scope and profound insight into the divided soul of Mexico."--History TodayThe Life and Times of Mexico is a grand narrative driven by 3,000 years of history: the Indian world, the Spanish invasion, Independence, the 1910 Revolution, the tragic lives of workers in assembly plants along the border, and the experiences of millions of Mexicans who live in the United States. Mexico is seen here as if it ...

"Brilliant.... A loving and detailed celebration of a diverse, beautiful and often astounding people."—Laurence Gonzales, Chicago TribuneThey are sometimes called the people who died twice, once at the hands of the Spaniards and their brutal process of civilization, then at the hands of Anglos, practicing a subtler exploitation. They are Latinos, the fastest-growing minority in the United States. Earl Shorris's deeply moving narrative—enlivened by biograph...

In this stark, unsettling novel, set in a Mexican prison, present-day events resonate with the ancient history and wisdom of the Maya. Graham Greene meets Carlos Castaneda.In the central Yucatan a group of Maya Indian workers revolt against the corrupt oligarchy of government, business, the official union, and the press. Two young men—a traditional Maya leader and a Mexican-American lawyer—are drawn into ever deeper commitment to the struggle. When they are caught ...

"You've been cheated," Earl Shorris tells a classroom of poor people in New York City."Rich people learn the humanities; you didn't. . . . It is generally accepted in America that the liberal arts and humanities in particular belong to the elite. I think you're the elite." In this groundbreaking work, Shorris examines the nature of poverty in America today. Why are people poor, and why do they stay poor? Shorris argues that they lack politics, or the ability to par...

If Adam is the archetype of man, and Eve of woman, then the serpent who sold the apple to Eve in the Garden of Eden was the first salesman: all culture and commerce flow from that act.In this groundbreaking book on the nature and meaning of the sale, Earl Shorris takes us on a journey that starts in Eden and comes at last to a consideration of where we are and what we have become by the late twentieth-century, when selling finally became the dominant human activity...