The Call of the Tribe, by Mario Vargas Llosa and translated by John King, is an intriguing book on several levels. It is a philosophical look at how Llosa's personal political views have changed over the years, as well as a perspective on the writers he goes into some detail on. In other words, this is both an autobiographical (intellectually speaking) and a philosophical (largely one person's perspective) work.

While I don't agree with a lot of his views, he is too far to the right for me, I found it interesting how he went from socialist to what he is now. The issue with the term liberal is that it means different things to different people. There is an academic/historical definition (which is very little like any popular uses of the word), then there are the popular uses, which vary largely on where in the world you live. US liberalism is not like European liberalism, and neither is like Latin American liberalism. Not that they are all entirely different, but they are also not interchangeable.

Probably a simple example of the differences can be illustrated with a quote from Llosa's introduction. While I can understand what he means, I know that by most popular definitions people would assume he is misspeaking. "[O]n economic and political issues Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had an unequivocal liberal outlook." To even hear that comment sends shudders through me, since neither of them have anything to do with what is commonly understood to be liberalism (unless you include neoliberalism).

But this book is less about agreeing with Llosa's political or economic stances and more about understanding both his thinking and the thinking of those who influenced him. On those counts the book succeeds very well. I enjoyed seeing how, instead of going from socialism to a way of thinking that takes the best from both socialism and classic liberalism, he goes from one system to the other, dispensing with the elements of socialism that need (in my opinion) to be a part of any democratic system. I think he took the lazy path and just shifted allegiances rather than synthesize the various ideas, but such is life.

The chapters that focus on the individual thinkers is enlightening not because they present some kind of textbook view of their thought, that isn't the purpose of the book, but because they show how an individual engages with those ideas. He has no responsibility, when writing about how these thinkers influenced him, to go into every counterpoint to these writers. Like I said, this isn't a textbook, there are plenty of those. Just because my takeaways from these writers is often different from his doesn't mean I didn't gain additional insight into them and into Llosa.

I would recommend this to those who like to read not just about philosophical and political ideas but about how an individual engages with those ideas. Again, this is one person's engagement, this isn't a textbook, so if you want a balanced presentation on these philosophers, go get a textbook and learn about them. If you're familiar with them, and/or Llosa, this book will be interesting.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )

Ideal para liberales o para quienes quieran entender más acerca del liberalismo. Trae las biografías y comentarios de Vargas Llosa acerca de los principales pensadores de esta línea: Smith, Hayes, Ortega y Gasset, Popper, Aron, Berlin y Revel
Smith: propiedad privada, comercio y como el orden emerge de manera natural. Las personas son buenas.
Hayek: quien mejor sabe lo que le conviene es uno mismo.
Ortega y Gasset: las masas son útiles para gobiernos totalitarios como el fascismo y el comunismo.
Popper: no hay superinteligentes que sepan todo, o sea, mejor no confiar en los politicos
Aron: porqué el marxismo no funciona.
Berlin: no se puede tener todo al mismo, así que es mejor elegir. Y si hay que elegir, mejor elegir la libertad.
Revel: los pensadores progresistas se encuentran solo en países donde pueden expresar su opinión. En los países donde sus ideas se han implantado ya no hay pensadores progresistas.

La llamada de la tribu de Maria Vagas Llosa es una autobiografía intelectual sobre algunos de los grandes pensadores del liberalismo quienes le influyeron muchísimo y cambiaron su modo de pensar.
Cada capítulo es estructurado en una parte biográfica para conocer el periodo en el que vivieron los pensadores y varias partes sobre las obras más importantes de estos filósofos con resúmenes y una descripción del efecto que tuvieron las obras sobre la sociedad de entonces.
Los pensadores que trata son: 1) Adam Smith (1723-1790), 2) José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), 3) Friedrich von Hayek (1899-1992), 4) Karl Popper (1902-1994), 5) Raymond Aron (1905-1983), 6) Isaiah Berlin (1909-1997) y 7) Jean-François Revel (1924-2006).

Maria Vagas Llosa escribió este libro en un estilo muy claro y fácil de entender, también para lectores poco familiarizados con el área de la filosofía política. ( )

This book is a series of biographic essays by Vargas Llosa in the lives of a number of authors who influenced him in his transformarion from a young idealistic Marxist to an older liberal person (liberal in the traditonal sense).
The book is interesting because even though it covers only seven thinkers, the range is wide. The short list has familiar authors like Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek, with others such as Karl Popper and Isaih Berli, as well as Ortega y Gasset. Also less well known thinkers, to American audiences perhaps, Raymond Aron and Jean-Framcois Revel.
The brief biographies highlight the main contributions of each author and a narrative of his life. Each essay is characterized by Vargas Llosa lucid and entertaining prose that makes the book as easy but instructive read. ( )