Nostromo

Richard Hanania on Conrad's Nostromo, Latin American Crime, and Populism

Conversations with Tyler, 4 November 2026. The book comes up at 59 sec in.

Tyler Cowen and Richard Hanania conduct an extended discussion of Conrad's 1904 novel set in the fictional Latin American country of Costaguana. They explore its prescience about development economics and Latin American political dysfunction, the tension between Western capitalist interests and local politics, Conrad's skepticism toward both classical liberalism and populism, the portrayal of the titular Nostromo and of Charles Gould, and the novel's deliberate nonlinear narrative structure.

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