The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights) [Illustrated] [Hardcover]

Jennifer Schirmer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1998 | ISBN-10: 0812233255 | ISBN-13: 978-0812233254 | Edition: illustrated edition

Guatemala has long been recognized as one of the countries suffering egregious violations of human rights. A principal actor has been the military, which has exercised effective control even during periods of formal civilian authority.

In The Guatemalan Military Project, Jennifer Schirmer sheds light on the military's role in Guatemala through a series of extensive interviews striking in their brutal frankness and revealing of the character of the oppressors. High-ranking officers explain in their own words their thoughts and feelings regarding opposition, national security doctrine, democracy, human rights, and law. Additional interviews with congressional deputies, Guatemalan lawyers, journalists, social scientists, and even an ex-president give a full and vivid account of the Guatemalan power structure and ruling system.

Successfully combining military, political, and cultural analysis with a serious treatment of legal and human rights considerations, this book will appeal to anyone interested in the conversion from war to peace in Latin America and around the world.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Guatemalan Military Project is a remarkable achievement. As any journalist or diplomat who has spent time in Guatemala will attest, no group is more difficult to penetrate than the Guatemalan armed forces. Over a period of a decade, Jennifer Schirmer succeeded in getting more than fifty Guatemalan officers to speak with uncustomary candor about their actions."—Larry Rohter, New York Times

"[An] indispensable account of the history of the Guatemalan military's rise to power and of the construction of a thoroughly militarized 'façade democracy'."—Journal of Latin American Studies

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

About the Author

Jennifer Schirmer is a lecturer in social studies at Harvard University. She is also an associate with the Program on Non-Violent Sanctions and Cultural Survival at the Center for International Affairs at Harvard. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 344 pages
• Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press; illustrated edition edition (October 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0812233255
• ISBN-13: 978-0812233254
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,745,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars valuable addition to a better understanding of violence in C, December 8, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: The Guatemalan Military Project: A Violence Called Democracy (Pennsylvania Studies in Human Rights) (Hardcover)

one of the most powerful accounts about violence and war in Central America. The author's extensive interviews with key military officers give shocking evidence about the scope of the civil war in Guatemala. A must read for human rights scholars and activists !