A Century of Revolution: Insurgent and Counterinsurgent Violence during Latin America's Long Cold War

by Greg Grandin (Editor), Lillian Guerra (Contribution by), Corey Robin (Contribution by)

Latin America experienced an epochal cycle of revolutionary upheavals and insurgencies during the twentieth century, from the Mexican Revolution of 1910 through the mobilizations and terror in Central America, the Southern Cone, and the Andes during the 1970s and 1980s. In his introduction to A Century of Revolution , Greg Grandin argues that the dynamics of political violence and terror in Latin America are so recognizable in their enforcement of domination, their generation and maintenance of social exclusion, and their propulsion of historical change, that historians have tended to take them for granted, leaving unexamined important questions regarding their form and meaning. The essays in this groundbreaking collection take up these questions, providing a sociologically and historically nuanced view of the ideological hardening and accelerated polarization that marked Latin America’s twentieth century. Attentive to the interplay among overlapping local, regional, national, and international fields of power, the contributors focus on the dialectical relations between revolutionary and counterrevolutionary processes and their unfolding in the context of U.S. hemispheric and global hegemony. Through their fine-grained analyses of events in Chile, Colombia, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Peru, they suggest a framework for interpreting the experiential nature of political violence while also analyzing its historical causes and consequences. In so doing, they set a new agenda for the study of revolutionary change and political violence in twentieth-century Latin America. Contributors
Michelle Chase
Jeffrey L. Gould
Greg Grandin
Lillian Guerra
Forrest Hylton
Gilbert M. Joseph
Friedrich Katz
Thomas Miller Klubock
Neil Larsen
Arno J. Mayer
Carlota McAllister
Jocelyn Olcott
Gerardo Rénique
Corey Robin
Peter Winn

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Latin American History, War, Politics, World History, 20th Century

456 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2009

About the author

Greg Grandin is the author of Fordlandia, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award. A Professor of History at New York University, Grandin has published a number of other award-winning books, including Empire's Workshop, The Last Colonial Massacre, and The Blood of Guatemala.

Toni Morrison called Grandin's new work, The Empire of Necessity, "compelling, brilliant and necessary." Based on years of research on four continents, the book narrates the history of a slave-ship revolt that inspired Herman Melville's other masterpiece, Benito Cereno. Philip Gourevitch describes it as a "rare book in which the drama of the action and the drama of ideas are equally measured, a work of history and of literary reflection that is as urgent as it is timely."

Grandin has served on the United Nations Truth Commission investigating the Guatemalan Civil War and has written for the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, The New Statesman, the Guardian, the London Review of Books, and The New York Times.

He received his BA from Brooklyn College, CUNY, in 1992 and his PhD from Yale in 1999. He has been a guest on Democracy Now!, The Charlie Rose Show, and the Chris Hayes Show.

Reviews

[AskHistorians]

A landmark edited collection that looks at political violence in Latin America from the Mexican Revolution to the civil wars of Central America in the 1980s. Looks at the relationship between local/national struggles and international contexts (particularly the struggle between communism and anti-communism).

[Erik Ryberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was very enlightening to read about these various events during the 100 year long cold war. Quite a few of these I was somewhat familiar with like events in Cuba, Peru and Chile, whereas others less so like in Guatemala and Colombia. The local actors and actions are presented and in an engaging manner that is accessible. The essays feel fairly balanced with an obvious leftist bent, but not annoyingly so until some of the final reflections. Larsen's essay goes a bit overboard and the final reflections in general are a bit of an overreach, but one is aware of what the arguments will be when reading the introductory essay.

To blame the US and capitalism for the ills of Latin America after the various essays have spent a great deal of time focusing on the actions of local groups and individuals is a rather unjustified. This is not unjustified when taking into account the US actions towards Latin America during the Cold War from the 1900s-today. This book is taking the side that the US is a prime mover in the events of LA in particular the suppression of popular will. The historical debate about the US' role includes that perspective as well as the perspective that the US' influence tends to be secondary and that local actors are the true movers. The success of Cuba and Nicaraguan revolutions stands in contrast to US attempts to destabilize those regimes so if the US has a preponderance of power then how do those two events succeed and remain so in the face of significant US efforts to destabilize? I would hazard a guess that there is significant popular acclaim for those movements as well as, admittedly US support or inaction for change for a time.

The blaming of capitalism certainly is relevant, but one could argue, using a plethora of historical examples, that economic conditions and opportunities will lead to violence between groups, states, etc. Capitalism is perhaps the current dominant economic system and the dominant system in a time of mass media becoming more massive and in a hyper-globalized era, but I am willing to guess that people are people and will use violence against each other despite the economic system.

[Adam Windsor · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a collection of rather scholarly essays, sometimes a bit dense and difficult to read. Also often depressing, since it's mostly about pretty horrible stuff happening. I found the articles on Chile and Cuba the most interesting.