Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Civil War
Arnson, Cynthia J., editor.
Comparative Peace Processes in Latin America
. Washington,
D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1999. Provides a good analysis of the peace process
that led to a negotiated settlement of the civil war in Guatemala and other countries as well
as issues concerning the roles of truth-telling reports, the search for justice, and reconcili-
ation.
Burgos-Debray, Elizabeth, editor.
I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala
.
London: Verso, 1984. The classic autobiography of Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta
Menchú.
Grandin, Greg.
The Last Colonial Massacre: Latin America in the Cold War
. Chicago:
The University of Chicago Press, 2004. This thought-provoking book argues that the Latin
American Cold War was actually a struggle between two differing notions of democracy,
with its main achievement being the elimination of grassroots attempts at building social
democracy. It uses Guatemala as a case study and concludes, somewhat convincingly, that
the version of democracy now being extolled as the best option in the war against terror is
itself a product of the same.
Handy, Jim.
Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict and Agrarian Reform in
Guatemala, 1944-1954
.ChapelHill:TheUniversityofNorthCarolinaPress,1994.Agood
in-depth look at the Agrarian Reform Law and the Guatemalan political scene during the
Arévalo and Arbenz years.
Manz, Beatriz.
Paradise in Ashes: A Guatemalan Journey of Courage, Terror, and Hope
.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Written by an anthropologist, this topic
centers around the Ixcán village of Santa María Tzejá, whose inhabitants were caught in
the violence between the guerrillas and military during the civil war.
Perera, Víctor.
Unfinished Conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy
. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1993. A must-read for travelers to Guatemala, covering sociopolitical as-
pects of the Guatemalan civil war as well as environmental issues in a well-written travel
narrative style.
Sanford, Victoria.
Buried Secrets: Truth and Human Rights in Guatemala
. New York: Pal-
grave Macmillan, 2004. A highly recommended read with well-researched information
from a number of different sources, including eyewitness testimonies from massacre sur-
vivors, interviews with members of forensic teams, human rights workers, high-ranking
military officers, guerrillas, and government officials. It is an instrumental book for under-
standing the full scale of the genocidal civil war and the attempt to rebuild society in its
aftermath.
Schlesinger, Stephen C., and Stephen Kinzer.
Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American
Coup in Guatemala
. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2005. This is a classic book on
Guatemala and its historical relationship with the United States. First published in 1982, it
covers in much detail the 1954 CIA-orchestrated coup ousting Jacobo Arbenz.
