RIP to Alan Riding, one of the all-time great Latin America corros and author of DISTANT NEIGHBORS (1984), still probably the best book about Mexico and its relationship with the U.S. Born in Brazil to British parents, he also wrote a book with legendary photographer Sebastião Salgado and covered the Central America wars for NYT. A generation that wore fedoras, smoked cigars and chronicled a LatAm that was much poorer, riven by conflict and less democratic than today. But like many successful chroniclers he saw the good alongside the bad and had a social consciousness that may have been ahead of its time. NYT obit in the comments. He was 82.