Marie’s TED talk on Bolívar

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Watch Marie’s (unedited) TED talk, given at the first TED-South conference in Latin America. The conference was in Rio de Janeiro in a fabulous tent set up on Copacabana Beach. Usually, TED talks are edited to a fine, polished product, and all the uhms, ahs, and slips removed, but here you get to see my…

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Library of Congress podcast about “Bolivar: American Liberator”

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Francisco Macias from the Library of Congress speaks with Marie Arana, who appeared at the National Book Festival on September 21, 2013, on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

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Book review: ‘Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca:American Trailblazer,’ by Robin Varnum

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Almost 500 years ago, the newly formed Empire of Spain — forged by the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, blessed by the pope, and unified by the eviction of Moors and the forcible conversion of Jews — issued a declaration that would forever define the Americas. It was called the Requerimiento, and it stated unequivocally to natives of the New World that the land on which they stood belonged to the Spanish Crown, that they would henceforward be Christians, and that any effort to resist would be met with war, seizure and enslavement.

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