Reality of Dreams

“Reality of Dreams is a tour de force, and an essential text for anyone trying to make sense of Correa’s Ecuador. . . . Though it is grounded in critical theory—ranging from Marx and Foucault to Freud and Lacan—it is empirically rich and highly readable, with lively, engaging prose.”—Tom Perreault, Journal of Latin American Studies

“Reality of Dreams is theoretically and empirically rich, deeply researched, closely argued, and very well written. This highly original work dismantles the developmental fantasies of the petro-state, showing how they crash miserably against the reality of petro-capitalism and how possibilities of radical social change emerge spontaneously from their debris.”—Mazen Labban, author of Space, Oil and Capital

“Reality of Dreams hovers in exciting ways over shadows cast by the secret dread animating all theory—that in the not so long run, nothing makes sense. What we have are fantasies rendered in ruins midst the juggernaut of ‘development.’ It is grotesque. It is absurd. It is unbelievable.”—Michael Taussig, author of Mastery of Non-Mastery in the Age of Meltdown

“Reality of Dreams is an epic tale of heroic modernization that takes us into the dark, dystopian heart of the post-neoliberal Citizens’ Revolution and President Correa’s petro-dream world, emerging into a world ever more fit for capitalist plunder.”—Michael J. Watts, Class of 1963 Professor of Geography and Development Studies Emeritus, University of California, Berkeley

“From the Jesuits, to Jonestown, to the (failed) from-scratch urban modernist ventures, Amazonia has not lacked for utopian experiments. Japhy Wilson’s fantastic book explores the Ecuadorian iteration of yet another tropical urban utopia fever dream.”—Susanna B. Hecht, author of Scramble for the Amazon and Fate of the Forest