Latin America was supposed to have ushered in a new era of prosperity with market reforms in the 1990s. Instead, the region saw low growth, financial crises, political instability, and the spectacular economic collapse of Argentina. What went wrong? Peruvian journalist Alvaro Vargas Llosa will explain that the region’s disappointing performance is part of a long historical pattern in which reforms of the left and right have typically failed. State oppression has been a constant since at least the Spanish conquest, and it continues to preempt good policies and undermine the efforts of Latin Americans to lift themselves out of poverty. Vargas Llosa will suggest a way out for Latin America, and Michael Shifter will comment on the book’s relevance to the region’s current condition.