Utopia Unarmed: The Latin American Left After the Cold War

Castro's Cuba is isolated; the guerrillas who once spread havoc through Uruguay and Argentina are dead, dispersed, or running for office as moderates. And in 1990, Nicaragua's Sandinistas were rejected at the polls by their own constituents. Are these symptoms of the fall of the Latin American left? Or are they merely temporary lulls in an ongoing revolution that may yet transform our hemisphere?

This perceptive and richly eventful study by one of Mexico's most distinguished political scientists tells the story behind the failed movements of the past thirty years while suggesting that the left has a continuing relevance in a continent that suffers from destitution and social inequality. Combining insider's accounts of intrigue and armed struggle with a clear-sighted analysis of the mechanisms of day-to-day power, Utopia Unarmed is an indispensable work of scholarship, reportage, and political prognosis.

• Revolutionary Movements in Latin America: El Salvador's FMLN and Peru's Shining Path
• Latin America's Cold War
• The Killing Zone: The United States Wages Cold War in Latin America
• Peasants, Politics, and the Formation of Mexico's National State: Guerrero, 1800-1857
• Contesting Castro: The United States and the Triumph of the Cuban Revolution
• Becoming the Tupamaros: Solidarity and Transnational Revolutionaries in Uruguay and the United States
• The Americas in the Age of Revolution: 1750-1850
• To Rise in Darkness: Revolution, Repression, and Memory in El Salvador, 1920–1932
• The Battle For Guatemala: Rebels, Death Squads, And U.s. Power (Latin American Perspectives)
• Bolivia: The Evolution of a Multi-Ethnic Society (Latin American Histories)