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Based on unpublished documentary sources from Spain and Guatemala, this innovative study reveals previously unknown episodes in the history of Guatemala's early colonial period. Kramer studies the distribution of Indian communities to Spanish conquistadors and settlers in the first two decades of the colonization of Guatemala, establishing for the first time a dynamic chronology of the development of the encomienda. ... Read more

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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.

Customer Reviews (5)

One of the Finest Microhistories of Revolutionary Warfare
In the early 1990's, I prepared political asylum petitions for numerous Mayan Indians that had fled the killing grounds of Guatemala.The single thing that surprised me most, were their stories of atrocities committed by the Guerillas.I had thought the "Army of the Poor" were fighting on behalf of the Mayan Indians against the Army and Guatemalan State.However, many of the stories I heard had to deal more with communal land struggles than Revolution against the State.I soon realized that the situation was vastly more complicated than I had thought.

Soon after the worst of the killings were over, the anthropologist David Stoll was doing fieldwork in one of the areas most devestated during the War.What he found is a more nuanced story than many of the accounts outsiders were hearing during this time period. By looking at revolution and counter-insurgency on a village by village, hamlet by hamlet basis, Stoll paints an extraordinary complicated picture of an Indian peasantry caught between a brutal Army and its own violent history of intercomunal conflict. More than any other type of warfare, revolution and counter-insurgency lends itself to the analysis of micro-history.

This book is an extraordinary account of a War that devestated Guatemala's indigenous people.David Stoll is to be commended for his personal bravery in gathering the local details of the War and his commitment to the unvarnished truth.One has to wonder how many more years it will take for the first anthropologists to be doing this same work in Iraq.Highly recommended.

An Accurate Analysis
I have spent the past several years of my life living and working in the Ixil region of Guatemala. During this time I have traveled to nearly all the places described in this book. I HAVE lived and worked with many former guerrillas and memebers of the "comunidades en resistencia" and I found Stoll's analysis of the Ixil region and its recent history to be both enlightening and accurate. His conclusions concerning the nature of the armed conflict in this region correspond very closely to my own experiences interacting with the people here.
Those who criticize Stoll are generally people who have only a very superficial knowledge of Guatemalan reality or those who try manipulate the country's history to confirm their own political fantasies of third world "noble savages" carrying out poplar utopian revolutions.
The only criticism I would offer to Stool is that he should have been much more vocal in his denunciations of the army's disgusting genocidal campaign against the Ixiles and the other indigenous peoples of Guatemala. By characterizing the army's campaign of mass murder as a simple reaction to a percieved threat, Stoll almost sounds as if he is excusing or rationalizing the unthinkable acts of this most horrible national institution.

Well written but confusing conclusion
David Stoll has written a book that opens much of the 1980's civil war torn Guatemala up to the reader.The details of village life, movement and to some degree, attitude is pertinent and important.Where the facts end and the theory begins is where the reader should take caution with Stoll's analysis.

Stoll seems to come to the conclusion that the Guerilla movement and the Guatemalan Army equally share blame for the strife of the country during this time period. While this is a truism, it is only a half-truism.Stoll neglects to dwell on the status of the Mayan Indians in Guatemala prior to the civil war and omits discussion of whether the war was justified or not justified.Stoll instead puts forth the rather obvious conclusion that neither the Guerillas or the Army represented all Mayans in Guatemala.While true, this situation of citizens caught between warring factions is usually a universal truth in war and does not shed any new light on Guatemala during this period.

The danger in Stoll's simple analysis in this book is that while he attempts to put forth the theory that the majority of Mayan citizens of Guatemala were "between two evils" he ends up promoting the theory that the majority of citizens were NOT aligned with the Guerillas. It is this point that is perpexling because Stoll does not directly interview any Guerilla combatant or get close to their camps.He does, however, include direct quotes from Army soldiers.Stoll can not hope to give a balanced viewpoint on the political scene with such a one-sided view of the situation.In fact, his very presence in Guatemala during this time would render the testimony given to him as less than factual.It is well known now that the US was involved in the Civil War in Guatemala during this time and many villagers have testified to human rights commissions that they saw Americans in both Guatemalan Army fatigues as well as American military fatigues.Stoll's presence then could be very unnerving to the very people he sought truths from.Stoll justifies this by saying that his interviewees talked badly about the Army and the Guerillas which lead him to the conclusion that they must be telling him the truth.Equally possible is the scenario that what he was hearing was not the truth at all as his subjects were wary of his questioning and would not put themselves at risk for his venture.

In the end, Stoll's book is a good source of general information but his conclusions are theories.And if one is to believe the massive volumes of human rights records on the issue - his theories are largely incorrect.

Excellent Anthropologist...
I happen to have had him as a teacher in the early 90's.I also happen to have lived in Guatemala the whole of my formative year's.Fact is that his view's of why and how of that period, in this and other books about Guatemala, corelate with both my and my friends experiance in Guatemala.I highly recomend this and other books of his both for their informative value and their basic readability.

A Realistic Analysis of Revolution and Counter-Rev'n
This study of how Guatemala's civil war impacted the lives of everyday campesinos is one of the best and most realistic studies of revolutionary (and counter-revolutionary) politics since Forrest Colburn's Post-Revolutionary Nicaragua.Stoll shows how both the guerrillas and the Guatemalan government share blame in putting peasants in the cross-fire of a war they didn't want.This book is sure to draw the ire of "romantic" revolutionaries that only see the Guatemalan conflict in terms of "good" vs. "evil." ... Read more

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After the installation of a civilian government in 1986, many Guatemalans hopes for a sharp break with the poverty and repression of the past. This updated edition examines the first half of Christian Democrat President Vinicio Cerezo's five-year term in office. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Church & State, published by Americans United for Separation of Church and State on February 1, 1997. The length of the article is 550 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the supplier: Tension between the Roman Catholics and the Protestants has heightened in Guatemalan public schools following the initiation of a morality program, which the Catholics claim is a cover-up for Protestant indoctrination. The program, 'Free and Triumphant Youth,' is ostensibly for youths, and centers around morals and religion. The program is criticized by Guatemalan bishops who oppose its fundamentalist framework, cosmological dualisms and proselytizing designs. The Conference of Evangelical Churches, has also criticized the program.

Citation Details
Title: Guatemala torn by conflict over religion in public schools.
Publication: Church & State (Refereed)
Date: February 1, 1997
Publisher: Americans United for Separation of Church and State
Volume: v50Issue: n2Page: p19(2)

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Chapters: Efraín Ríos Montt, Vinicio Gómez, Rafael Castillo Valdez, Alberto Fuentes Mohr, Haroldo Rodas, Ronaldo Cecilio Leiva. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 29. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: José Efraín Ríos Montt (born June 16, 1926) is a former de facto President of Guatemala, dictator, army general, and former president of Congress. In the 2003 presidential elections, he unsuccessfully ran as the candidate of the ruling Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG). Huehuetenango-born Ríos Montt remains one of the most controversial figures in Guatemala. Two Truth Commissions, one sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church and the other conducted by the government as part of the 1996 Accords of Firm and Durable Peace, documented widespread human rights abuses committed by Ríos Montt's military regime, including widespread massacres, rape, torture, and acts of genocide against the indigenous population. Supporters claim that he had to rule with an iron hand because the country was becoming unstable due to the civil war. Ríos Montt has, at times, had close ties to the United States who gave him aid to fight against left-wing guerrillas. Ríos Montt is best known outside Guatemala for heading a military regime (19821983) that was responsible in some of the worst atrocities of Guatemala's 36-year civil war. The war ended with a peace treaty in 1996. The civil war pitted left-wing rebel groups against the army, with huge numbers of Mayan campesinos caught in the crossfire. At least 200,000 Guatemalans were killed during the conflict, making it one of Latin America's most violent wars in modern history. Indigenous Mayans suffered greatly under his rule, and it is documented that his government deliberately targeted thousands of them since many of them in the countryside were suspected of harbor...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=271964 ... Read more

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The United Fruit Company (UFCO) developed an unprecedented relationship with Guatemala in the first half of this century. By 1944, UFCO owned 566,000 acres, employed 20,000 people, and operated 96% of Guatemala's 719 miles of railroad, making the multinational corporation Guatemala's largest private landowner and biggest employer. In Doing Business with the Dictators, Paul J. Dosal shows how UFCO built up a profitable corporation in a country whose political system was known to be corrupt. His work is based largely on research of company documents recently acquired from the Justice Department under the Freedom of Information Act-no other historian researching this topic has looked at these sources. As a result, Dr. Dosal is able to offer the first documentary evidence of how UFCO acquired, defended, and exploited its Guatemalan properties by collaborating with successive authoritarian regimes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Interesting perhaps for the Latin American scholar, but not for anyone else
Both the reader of this book, and the book itself, wake up once per chapter. For scholarly purposes, it may need all the detail and plodding sentences that it contains, but I can't imagine that non-scholars will find anything captivating in it. I certainly didn't.

In general it tells the story of United Fruit Company's rise to power under a string of Guatemalan dictators. Paul Dosal wants to argue that United Fruit could never have done as well as it did under a democracy: by a succession of bribes, United Fruit managed to control most of the Guatemalan train system and its most important ports. It semi-secretly owned the International Railways of Central America. This ownership allowed it to charge obscene rates to any non-United banana companies. Without government support for that monopoly and its unconscionable rates, United would never have survived.

United owned the Guatemalan government; Sam Zemurray, through his Cuyamel Fruit Company, owned the Honduran. The Guatemalan and Honduran governments often came close to blows in defense of their respective banana barons, particularly at the boundary between the two countries where profitable banana cultivation happened. That dispute was only settled when Cuyamel and United merged, and Zemurray eventually took over the combined behemoth.

If you're interested in the details of how a company exploited a government, and how a sequence of military strongmen kept 80% of their people illiterate and hungry, by all means read Dosal's book. Otherwise, I have just given you most of what you'll learn. You can thank me later.

Government Collusion Yields Monopoly and Exploitation
Paul Dosal wrote this book as an extension of his doctoral thesis.In doing so, he has retained the focus on the relationship between the banana giant, United Fruit Company, and the so-called Liberal regimes in Guatemala from before the turn of the 20th century to the intellectuals and workers revolution of 1944.It has the usual indicia of a scholarly work, but it is well-written and easily comprehended by the general reader.Professor Dosal brings a certain amount of passion to his work, and he clearly views the main characters as greedy and criminal, but he generally sticks to the facts and delivers them in an orderly fashion.

Guatemala was only one of several Latin American and Caribbean countries where the United Fruit Company harvested or procured bananas, and it hardly has been one of the biggest-generally accounting for about six percent of world production.Yet it was the ability of Minor Keith, Victor Cutter, and Sam Zemurray to obtain favorable arrangements from the Guatemalan strongmen, particularly Manuel Estrada Cabrera (1898-1920) and Jorge Ubico (1929-44), that allowed United Fruit to forge a unique level of near-total economic control over the entire country and its development.Not only did United Fruit develop a monopoly in the production and marketing of Guatemalan bananas, but it also controlled the country's railroads and primary port.Its contracts allowed it to operate on its property without government regulation and with very little obligation to pay taxes.It also exercised nearly complete control over Guatemala's import and export trade, including the trade of coffee, even though it was neither a producer or marketer of this other primary export commodity.

Dosal does not go out of his way to claim or prove bribes and kickbacks to government officials for these favorable arrangements.He doesn't have to, as the facts speak for themselves.Anyway, his primary indictment of the "caudillos" is that they betrayed the interests of their own people for the benefit of foreign investors to an extent far beyond any return their country and its people received.In defense of Minor Keith and his investors, Guatemala's government had attempted to develop a national railroad without success because of lack of capital, and Keith provided the expertise and capital to get the railroad and the port built.Similarly, some of the later steps taken by United Fruit that resulted in greater economic control were done after Guatemalan authorities had been unable to accomplish their economic goals by other means, but the complicity of the dictators in United Fruit's plans resulted in increasingly one-sided bargains.Professor Dosal contrasts the similar development in Costa Rica, in which democratic regimes made bargains with United Fruit that over the years were much more even-handed.Dosal's main point, well-documented in this book, is that but for the existence of dictatorial regimes in Guatemala over the 45 years, the role of United Fruit Company in Guatemala's development would have been quite different.He writes:

"While Guatemalan dictators had conditioned the development of United Fruit, American diplomats and capitalists had deluded themselves into thinking that they shaped Guatemala's destiny.The country's most brutal dictator sanctioned the concession that allowed Keith to monopolize railways, and the limited democratic opening of the 1920s blocked his efforts to extend his influence to Guatemalan financing.Without timely assistance from Guatemala's corrupt and authoritarian rulers, Keith and United would have found it much more difficult to extract liberal concessions from the government, eliminate competitors, and suppress challenges to its authority."(pp. 112-13).

Unique research & analysis, insightful for learned reader
"Doing Business" covers some of the behind the scenes maneuvering and personality conflicts typical of early 20th century Central American republics.It sheds light on the motivation of the men behind the UFC and the railroads in detail not usually seen in books delaing with this subject.Too many other books have been written about Central American politics, especially with regard to the United Fruit Company, which focus solely on classical political analysis.This work must be used when studying this era in Central American history, to gain a full picture of the events.It would be nice to see more research like that of "Doing Business", political inclinations aside. ... Read more

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"Gender equality and meaningful democratization are inextricably linked," writes Ilja Luciak. "The democratization of Central America requires the full incorporation of women as voters, candidates, and office holders." In After the Revolution: Gender and Democracy in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala, Luciak shows how former guerrilla women in three Central American countries made the transition from insurgents to mainstream political players in the democratization process.

Examining the role of women in the various stages of revolutionary and national politics, Luciak begins with women as participants and leaders in guerrilla movements. Women contributed greatly to the revolutionary struggle in all three countries, but thereafter many similarities ended. In Guatemala, ideological disputes reduced women's political effectiveness at both the intra-party and national levels. In Nicaragua, although women's rights became a secondary issue for the revolutionary party, women were nonetheless able to put the issue on the national agenda. In El Salvador, women took leading roles in the revolutionary party and were able to incorporate women's rights into a broad reform agenda. Luciak cautions that while active measures to advance the political role of women have strengthened formal gender equality, only the joint efforts of both sexes can lead to a successful transformation of society based on democratic governance and substantive gender equality. ... Read more

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Weaving Relationships tells the remarkable, little-known story of a movement that transcends barriers of geography, language, culture, and economic disparity.

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Maya Cultural Activism in Guatemala marks a new era in Guatemalan studies by offering an up-to-the-minute look at the pan-Maya movement and the future of the Maya people as they struggle to regain control over their cultural destiny. The successful emergence of what is in some senses a nationalism grounded in ethnicity and language has challenged scholars to reconsider their concepts of nationalism, community, and identity. Editors Edward F. Fischer and R. McKenna Brown have brought together essays by virtually all the leading U.S. experts on contemporary Maya communities and the top Maya scholars working in Guatemala today. Supplementing scholarly analysis of Mayan cultural activism is a position statement originating within the movement and more wide-ranging and personal reflections by anthropologists and linguists who have worked with the Maya over the years. Among the broader issues that come in for examination are the complex relations between U.S. Mayanists and the Mayan cultural movement, efforts to promote literacy in Mayan languages, the significance of woven textiles and native dress, the relations between language and national identity, and the cultural meanings that the present-day Maya have encountered in ancient Mayan texts and hieroglyphic writing. ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Global Governance, published by Thomson Gale on July 1, 2007. The length of the article is 7319 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Moving beyond mediation: the OAS transforming conflict in Guatemala.(Organization of American States)
Author: Yasmine Shamsie
Publication: Global Governance (Magazine/Journal)
Date: July 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 13Issue: 3Page: 409(17)

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