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Over the latter half of the twentieth century, the Guatemalan state slaughtered more than two hundred thousand of its citizens. In the wake of this violence, a vibrant pan-Mayan movement has emerged, one that is challenging Ladino (non-indigenous) notions of citizenship and national identity. In The Blood of Guatemala Greg Grandin locates the origins of this ethnic resurgence within the social processes of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century state formation rather than in the ruins of the national project of recent decades. Focusing on Mayan elites in the community of Quetzaltenango, Grandin shows how their efforts to maintain authority over the indigenous population and secure political power in relation to non-Indians played a crucial role in the formation of the Guatemalan nation. To explore the close connection between nationalism, state power, ethnic identity, and political violence, Grandin draws on sources as diverse as photographs, public rituals, oral testimony, literature, and a collection of previously untapped documents written during the nineteenth century. He explains how the cultural anxiety brought about by Guatemala’s transition to coffee capitalism during this period led Mayan patriarchs to develop understandings of race and nation that were contrary to Ladino notions of assimilation and progress. This alternative national vision, however, could not take hold in a country plagued by class and ethnic divisions. In the years prior to the 1954 coup, class conflict became impossible to contain as the elites violently opposed land claims made by indigenous peasants. This “history of power” reconsiders the way scholars understand the history of Guatemala and will be relevant to those studying nation building and indigenous communities across Latin America. Read more

Bitter Fruit is a comprehensive and insightful account of the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. First published in 1982, this book has become a classic, a textbook case of the relationship between the United States and the Third World. The authors make extensive use of U.S. government documents and interviews with former CIA and other officials. It is a warning of what happens when the United States abuses its power. Read more

An Economist and Financial Times “Best Book of the Year”   “Harrowing” true stories from two years of immersion reporting on the migrant trail from Chiapas to Arizona—an “honorable successor to enduring works like George Orwell’s The Road to Wigan Pier” (New York Times)   One day a few years ago, 300 migrants were kidnapped between the remote desert towns of Altar, Mexico, and Sasabe, Arizona. A local priest got 120 released, many with broken ankles and other marks of abuse, but the rest vanished. Óscar Martínez, a young writer from El Salvador, was in Altar soon after the abduction, and his account of the migrant disappearances is only one of the harrowing stories he garnered from two years spent traveling up and down the migrant trail from Central America and across the US border. More than a quarter of a million Central Americans make this increasingly dangerous journey each year, and each year as many as 20,000 of them are kidnapped. Martínez writes in powerful, unforgettable prose about clinging to the tops of freight trains; finding respite, work and hardship in shelters and brothels; and riding shotgun with the border patrol. Illustrated with stunning full-color photographs, The Beast is the first book to shed light on the harsh new reality of the migrant trail in the age of the narcotraficantes. Read more

Challenging the views of human rights activists, Stoll argues that the Ixils who supported Guatemalan rebels in the early 1980's did so because they were caught in the crossfire between the guerillas and the army, not because revolutionary violence expressed community aspirations. Read more

new in paperbackSilence on the Mountain is a virtuoso work of reporting and a masterfully plotted narrative tracing the history of Guatemala’s thirty-six-year internal war, a conflict that claimed the lives of some 200,000 people, the vast majority of whom died (or were “disappeared”) at the hands of the U.S.-backed military government. Written by Daniel Wilkinson, a young human rights worker, the story begins in 1993, when the author decides to investigate the arson of a coffee plantation’s manor house by a band of guerrillas. The questions surrounding this incident soon broaden into a complex mystery whose solution requires Wilkinson to dig up the largely unwritten history of the country’s recent civil war, following its roots back to a land reform movement that was derailed by a U.S.-sponsored military coup in 1954 and to the origins of a plantation system that put Guatemala’s Mayan Indians to work picking coffee beans for the American and European markets. Decades of terror-inspired fear have led the Guatemalans to adopt a survival strategy of silence so complete that it verges on collective amnesia. The author’s great triumph is that he finds a way for people to tell their stories, and it is through these stories—dramatic, intimate, heartbreaking—that we are shown the anatomy of a thwarted revolution that has relevance not only to Guatemala but also to countless places around the world where terror has been used as a political tool. Read more

A Nobel Peace Prize winner reflects on poverty, injustice, and the struggles of Mayan communities in Guatemala, offering “a fascinating and moving description of the culture of an entire people” (The Times)   Now a global bestseller, the remarkable life of Rigoberta Menchú, a Guatemalan peasant woman, reflects on the experiences common to many Indian communities in Latin America. Menchú suffered gross injustice and hardship in her early life: her brother, father and mother were murdered by the Guatemalan military. She learned Spanish and turned to catechistic work as an expression of political revolt as well as religious commitment. Menchú vividly conveys the traditional beliefs of her community and her personal response to feminist and socialist ideas. Above all, these pages are illuminated by the enduring courage and passionate sense of justice of an extraordinary woman. Read more

¿Por qué las guerrillas guatemaltecas no consiguieron sus objetivos militares? ¿Qué papel desempeñó la Iglesia católica? ¿El proceso de paz dibujó una Guatemala diferente? Anatomía del enfrentamiento armado interno explora los acontecimientos cruciales que definieron la historia de Guatemala desde la década de 1960 hasta la firma de la paz en 1996. A través de un relato minucioso, el lector descubrirá testimonios sorprendentes y conocerá tanto a los actores clave como el contexto necesario para lograr una comprensión integral del enfrentamiento armado. Rodrigo Fernández Ordóñez nos invita a cuestionar, a debatir y a abrir la puerta a un diálogo acerca de nuestra historia.★ ★ ★«Se alza como un referente de lo ocurrido en Guatemala gracias al arduo y minucioso trabajo de recopilación de fuentes, datos y hechos. Quien desee conocer la historia del país o apoyarse en fuentes secundarias para hacer una investigación no tendrá más remedio que remitirse al contenido de este libro».Rogelio NúñezProfesor del Instituto Universitario de Investigación en Estudios Latinoamericanos de la Universidad de Alcalá★ ★ ★«La narración lleva al lector por aquellos funestos acontecimientos con objetividad, sin sesgo ideológico y siguiendo los relatos de testigos presenciales, periodistas que cubrieron las noticias y datos tomados de documentos desclasificados. Sin la menor duda, este libro será un importante y valioso aporte para el estudio del enfrentamiento armado».Carlos Alfonso Álvarez-Lobos VillatoroHistoriador y genealogista, académico de número de la Academia de Geografía e Historia de Guatemala★ ★ ★«Una crónica, un estudio riguroso fruto de un trabajo intelectual complejo caracterizado por un esfuerzo bibliográfico monumental. Nos ayuda a entender tanto lo que sucedió como lo que está sucediendo en la actualidad».Eduardo Fernández LuiñaProfesor de Ciencia Política en la Universidad Francisco Marroquín Read more

El doctor Ramiro Bolaños, quien ha dedicado muchos años a estudiar la historia de Guatemala y de la región, nos ofrece en este libro un aporte singular. Basándose en innumerables fuentes nos relata, desde sus orígenes, la historia de las diversas civilizaciones y culturas que han habitado en estas tierras, su evolución, sus desafíos, sus conquistas, sus avances y sus retrocesos.En Editorial SET pensamos que faltaba, en nuestras bibliotecas, una obra como esta, pues Bolaños logra integrar, en un todo bien relacionado, nuestros complejos y dilatados orígenes, sin perderse en innecesarios detalles que complican la lectura.¿De dónde venimos, Guatemala? Las civilizaciones originales, está concebida como la primera parte de un conjunto de cinco tomos que llega hasta los días del presente. Este primer tomo, que Editorial SET se complace en presentar, es un texto rico en información, valioso en sus análisis y único por la síntesis que el autor ha logrado realizar. Por eso, lo recomendamos sinceramente al lector, que encontrará aquí una visión integrada de un pasado que, sin duda, debemos valorar para comprender mejor nuestro presente. Read more

TESTIMONY: DEATH OF A GUATEMALAN VILLAGE is an eyewitness account by a Guatemalan primary school teacher detailing one instance of violent conflict between the indigenous Maya people and the army. An accidental clash between the village's "civil patrol" and a Guatemalan army troop leads to the execution or imprisonment of many villagers. Written in clear, direct prose, this account reads like an adventure story while conveying an historical reality. This vital and essential record captures how Guatemala's 36-year civil war, which reached its most violent peak in the 1980s, ripped the traditional fabric of Guatemalan society.  Read more

After decades of bloodshed and political terror, many lament the rise of the left in Latin America. Since the triumph of Castro, politicians and historians have accused the left there of rejecting democracy, embracing communist totalitarianism, and prompting both revolutionary violence and a right-wing backlash. Through unprecedented archival research and gripping personal testimonies, Greg Grandin powerfully challenges these views in this classic work. In doing so, he uncovers the hidden history of the Latin American Cold War: of hidebound reactionaries holding on to their power and privilege; of Mayan Marxists blending indigenous notions of justice with universal ideas of equality; and of a United States supporting new styles of state terror throughout the region.With Guatemala as his case study, Grandin argues that the Latin American Cold War was a struggle not between political liberalism and Soviet communism but two visions of democracy—one vibrant and egalitarian, the other tepid and unequal—and that the conflict’s main effect was to eliminate homegrown notions of social democracy. Updated with a new preface by the author and an interview with Naomi Klein, The Last Colonial Massacre is history of the highest order—a work that will dramatically recast our understanding of Latin American politics and the role of the United States in the Cold War and beyond.“This work admirably explains the process in which hopes of democracy were brutally repressed in Guatemala and its people experienced a civil war lasting for half a century.”—International History Review “A richly detailed, humane, and passionately subversive portrait of inspiring reformers tragically redefined by the Cold War as enemies of the state.”—Journal of American History Read more

The United States Marine Corps once fought for God, country, and bananas.This book is about the Banana Wars that lasted from the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898 until Franklin Roosevelt's Good Neighbor Policy of 1934. When you read this story, you'll learn how and why the US Marines invaded Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Cuba, Haiti, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. You'll also learn how the US Marines occupied and ruled Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic for years.You'll read about why bananas became such an important commodity and how a combination of technologies made it possible. And you'll learn how the American public was persuaded to start buying all those bananas. You'll see how the United Fruit Company put all the pieces together to form an incredibly efficient company powerful enough to overturn presidents and dictators.You'll find out how gaining possession of California inevitably led the United States to see the Caribbean and Central America as vital to American national security.You'll learn that an episode in a world-famous novel by the Colombian novelist Gabriel Garcia Marquez is true.You'll discover the story of the battleship USS Oregon circumnavigating South America in a 12,000-mile, sixty-day voyage to join the Atlantic fleet as the Spanish-American War broke out-and how the epic journey played into the design of the Panama Canal.You'll read about a 1903 crisis that led to German, British, and Italian warships blockading Venezuela and to Teddy Roosevelt amending the Monroe Doctrine.When you read this book, you'll also discover the following: An amendment by a US Senator to an obscure piece of legislation controlled the destiny of Cuba for a generation.The kind of banana all this was about has gone extinct.The Germans planned to conquer an island near Puerto Rico and use it to attack the United States.A US Marine major general wrote a book about being a gangster for capitalism.The owner of a banana corporation kept mercenary soldiers like Machine Gun Molony on the payroll in case he needed to overturn an uncooperative government.An insulted US Navy admiral almost started a war with Mexico.A defeated Mexican dictator conspired with German spies to keep the United States out of World War 1. Read more

Transnational Communism across the Americas offers an innovative approach to the study of Latin American communism. It convincingly illustrates that communist parties were both deeply rooted in their own local realities and maintained significant relationships with other communists across the region and around the world. The essays in this collection use a transnational lens to examine the relationships of the region’s communist parties with each other, their international counterparts, and non-communist groups dedicated to anti-imperialism, women’s rights, and other causes. Topics include the shifting relationship between Mexican communists and the Comintern, Black migrant workers in the Caribbean, race relations in Cuba, Latin American communists in the USSR, Luís Carlos Prestes in Brazil, the U.S. and Puerto Rican communist and Nationalist parties, peace activist networks in Latin America, communist women in Guatemala, transnational student groups, and guerrillas in El Salvador. Contributors: Marc Becker, Jacob Blanc, Tanya Harmer, Patricia Harms, Lazar Jeifets, Victor Jeifets, Adriana Petra, Margaret M. Power, Frances Peace Sullivan, Tony Wood, Kevin A. Young, and Jacob Zumoff Read more

After more than 500 years of marginalization, Latin America’s forty million Indians have recently made major strides in gaining political recognition and civil rights. In this book, social scientists explore the important role of religion in indigenous activism, showing the ways that religion has strengthened indigenous identity and contributed to the struggle for indigenous rights in the region. Drawing on case studies from Bolivia, Peru, Guatemala, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Mexico, the contributors explore four key questions. How have traditional religions interacted with Christianity to produce new practices and beliefs? What resources, motivations, and ideological legitimacies do religious institutions provide for indigenous social movements? How effective are these movements in achieving their goals? Finally, as new religious groups continue to compete for adherents in the region, how will individuals’ religious choices affect political outcomes?Resurgent Voices in Latin America offers new insight into the dynamics of indigenous social movements and into the complex and changing world of Latin American religions. The essays show that religious beliefs, practices, and institutions have both affected and been affected by political activism. Read more

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.This work is in the "public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant. Read more

A free ebook version of this title is available through Luminos, University of California Press’s Open Access publishing program. Visit www.luminosoa.org to learn more. Based on more than a decade of ethnographic research, The Fourth Invasion examines an Ixil Maya community’s movement against the construction of one of the largest hydroelectric plants in Guatemala. The arrival of the Palo Viejo hydroelectric plant (built by the Italian corporation Enel Green Power) to the municipality of Cotzal highlighted the ongoing violence inflicted on Ixils by outsiders and the Guatemalan state. Locals referred to the building of the hydroelectric plant as the “new invasion” or “fourth invasion” for its similarity to preceding invasions: Spanish colonization, the creation of the plantation economy, and the state-led genocide during the Guatemalan armed conflict. Through a historical account of cyclical waves of invasions and resistance in Cotzal during the four invasions, Giovanni Batz argues that extractivist industries are a continuation of a colonial logic of extraction based on the displacement and destruction of Indigenous Peoples' territories and values that has existed since the arrival of the Spanish in 1524. The current movements in Cotzal, rooted in a long history of resistance, counter dominant narratives of Indigenous Peoples that often portray them as “conquered.”   Read more

A Mayan evangelical pastor recounts his harrowing experience before and during the Guatemalan Civil War and the heroic action that saved hundreds of lives.During the height of the Guatemalan civil war, Tomás Guzaro, a Mayan evangelical pastor, led more than two hundred fellow Mayas out of guerrilla-controlled Ixil territory and into the relative safety of the government army's hands. This exodus was one of the factors that caused the guerrillas to lose their grip on the Ixil, thus hastening the return of peace to the area.In Escaping the Fire, Guzaro relates the hardships common to most Mayas and the resulting unrest that opened the door to civil war. He details the Guatemalan army’s atrocities while also describing the Guerrilla Army of the Poor’s rise to power in Ixil country, which resulted in limited religious freedom, murdered church leaders, and threatened congregations. His story climaxes with the harrowing vision that induced him to guide his people out of their war-torn homeland. Guzaro also provides an intimate look at his spiritual pilgrimage through all three of Guatemala's main religions. The son of a Mayan priest, formerly a leader in the Catholic Church, and finally a convert to Protestantism, Guzaro, in detailing his religious life, offers insight into the widespread shift toward Protestantism in Latin America over the past four decades. Read more

In The Mayan in the Mall, J. T. Way traces the creation of modern Guatemala from the 1920s to the present through a series of national and international development projects. Way shows that, far from being chronically underdeveloped, this nation of stark contrasts—where shopping malls and multinational corporate headquarters coexist with some of the Western Hemisphere's poorest and most violent slums—is the embodiment of globalized capitalism. Using a wide array of historical and contemporary sources, Way explores the multiple intersections of development and individual life, focusing on the construction of social space through successive waves of land reform, urban planning, and economic policy. His explorations move from Guatemala City's poorest neighborhoods and informal economies (run predominantly by women) to a countryside still recovering from civil war and anti-Mayan genocide, and they encompass such artifacts of development as the modernist Pan-American Highway and the postmodern Grand Tikal Futura, a Mayan-themed shopping mall ringed by gated communities and shantytowns. Capitalist development, Way concludes, has dramatically reshaped the country's physical and social landscapes—engendering poverty, ethnic regionalism, and genocidal violence—and positioned Guatemala as a harbinger of globalization's future. Read more

Este libro analiza las relaciones entre comunidad y Estado durante la Revolución de 1944. Presenta datos sobre los discursos de los revolucionarios en relación con el lugar de los indígenas en la nación, el posicionamiento de las comunidades desde los partidos políticos, las protestas de los indígenas ante el trabajo forzado y las luchas que emprendieron durante la Reforma Agraria. Se concluye que la Revolución fue una oportunidad importante en las luchas que los indígenas habían desarrollado históricamente para enfrentar la dominación y para posicionarse frente al dominio colonial, a pesar de que los líderes de la Revolución fueron incapaces de reconocer la fuerza política de los indígenas y la particularidad de sus luchas. Se argumenta que la Reforma Agraria fue un proceso importante en el cuestionamiento de la definición de los indígenas como sirvientes, pero que este proceso fue cortado por la Contrarrevolución de 1954. Este trabajo se adentra en un problema importante en la vida de los indígenas y de Guatemala; es decir, en el reconocimiento de las identidades políticas de las comunidades y de los cuerpos indígenas. Read more

Deborah Levenson-Estrada provides the first comprehensive analysis of how urban labor unions took shape in Guatemala under conditions of state terrorism. In Trade Unionists against Terror, she explores how workers made sense of their struggle for rights in the face of death squads and other forms of violent opposition from the state. Levenson-Estrada focuses especially on the case of 400 workers at the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Guatemala City, who, in order to protect their union, successfully occupied the factory for over a year beginning in 1984 while the country was under a state of siege. According to Levenson-Estrada, religion provided the language of resistance, and workers who were engaged in what seemed to be a dead-end battle constructed an identity for themselves as powerful agents of change. Based on oral histories as well as documentary sources, Trade Unionists against Terror also illuminates complex relationships between urban popular culture, gender, family, and workplace activism in Guatemala. Read more