For most of the 20th century, Guyana was one of South America's overlooked economies — a jungle-blanketed nation of roughly 850,000 people, dependent on sugar, timber, and gold, and among the region's lowest-ranked countries by income per capita. That identity has been dismantled with startling speed. Today, Guyana is one of the fastest-growing economies on earth, and on certain purchasing-power measures, its income per person has surpassed that of the United States. This is not a story of gradual development. It is a rupture.
