Customer Reviews

Violence in Colombia, 1990-2000: Waging War and Negotiating Peace (Latin American Silhouettes)

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A good foundation of Colombian history would help the reader, for what is told within is extremeley insightful, and necessary for gaining a profound understanding of Colombia's unfortunate situation. The compilation of authors in this anthology brings together the economic, political, historical and sociological factors that have, and continue to, contribute to Colombia's demise. They show how it finds itself in regards to the rest of the world, as well as within its own borders.

In anticipation of moving to Colombia, I have spent a great deal of time researching the country's current sociopolitical situation and trying to sort through the abundance of books that exist on the subject. The in-depth and critical analyses presented in this collection of articles, authored primarily by known Colombian scholars living and working in Colombia, offer truly invaluable insider perspectives on a variety of subjects. It's a necessary and refreshing read for those who have been exposed mainly to North American interpretations of the situation.

I have not found a better book on the subject. Period. If you are seriously interested in and care about what's going on in Colombia today, this book is a must-read.

Its predecessor, "Violence in Colombia - The Contemporaray Crisis in a Historical Perspective," is nearly as good and well worth looking into also.

This book offers a collection of viewpoints. Each gives detailed explanations of the violence in Colombia. Moreover, it goes into great lenths to explain the dynamics of the civil war in Colombia. The scholars that contribute to this book are outstanding. However, I found Gonzalo Sánchez to be the most engaging.

This book brings together the world's most respected academic analysts of the Colombian conflict, and is in my opinion the most important single contribution to contemporary analyses of Colombia's protracted conflict. It effectively demonstrates that the conflict can not merely be reduced to the role of nascent American imperialism, the drug trade, or poverty, but is far more complex and subtle than explanations given by ideologues on either the right or left. In order to better understand the conflict, one must comprehend its origins, the historical processes of political exclusion and repression, the relationship between the drug economy and both the insurgency and counter-insurgency movements, conflict over land rights, business-labour relations, and the role of institutional reform. It serves as a reminder that in the Colombian conflict, nobody is entirely innocent and nobody entirely culpable.

The chapters that I found to be most informative were those of Sanchez, Bejarno, Restrepo, and Bergquist, though all chapters were excellent. The chapters by Sanchez and Restrepo pose a serious challenge to unflinching guerrilla sympathisers (and counter-insurgency supporters), and Bergquist's chapter shows how the domestic economy, social classes, and political actors have evolved throughout history in a near-constant struggle for land and economic profits, bifurcating "el pueblo" and creating the present quagmire. Bejarno's is the best single analysis of the constitutional reform process and flags potential dangers on the road to future reform. Any serious student of Colombian politics and society must read this book.