Bolivia: A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism

I first learned about Bolivia in second grade. One of the priests at my parish had served as a Maryknoll missionary in Bolivia, and he visited our classroom to tell us about it. Bolivia had two capitals, La Paz and Sucre, and the women wore bowler hats. To second graders, these were things that made Bolivia seem wildly different.

Of Bolivia’s two capitals, Sucre is specified in the constitution, but La Paz is where the government operates. La Paz is the highest capital city in the world, and it is unusual in that the real estate in the lowlands is more valuable than it is at the higher levels: the tradeoff for the fantastic views from higher up is lower levels of oxygen.

Bolvia’s 12 million people are the poorest in South America. It’s landlocked and well off the beaten track. Into this country that most people know of as a series of trivia answers, Peter Mountford has brought a plot and a bunch of characters. A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism tells of the adventures of an analyst for a hedge fund, looking for an angle in a place where few others look. He finds himself involved with journalists, activists, and politicians, with sex and alcohol and plenty of adventure. The main character is disgusted by the tradeoffs of development, but also anxious to make his career.

I can identify with that. A lot of people can.

This is a great book if you’re looking for an adventure story that also wrestles with ambiguity. I really liked it.