The School of the Americas: Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas

Lesley Gill

Published by Duke University Press 2004

The School of the Americas

Military Training and Political Violence in the Americas

Lesley Gill
Edited by: Gilbert M. Joseph and Emily S. Rosenberg

In the series American encounters/global interactions

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822386001

Overview
Contents

About this book

Transnational ethnography and history of the School of the Americas, analyzing the military, peasant, and activist cultures that are linked by this institution.

Author / Editor information

Lesley Gill is Professor of Anthropology and Department Chair, Vanderbilt University. She is the author of Teetering on the Rim: Global Restructuring, Daily Life, and the Armed Retreat of the Bolivian State; Precarious Dependencies: Gender, Class, and Domestic Service in Bolivia; and Peasants, Entrepreneurs, and Social Change: Frontier Development in Lowland Bolivia.

Reviews

“Lesley Gill has produced an in-depth exposé of the militaristic mentality, socioethnic tensions, and outrageous atrocities of the empire’s Praetorian Guard. Insightful and richly researched, a work of superior quality.”—Michael Parenti, author of The Terrorism Trap and The Assassination of Julius Caesar

“Lesley Gill’s study of the premier military training operation in the Americas is a treasure trove of histories that will provoke a long overdue debate about the values and limits of U.S. engagement in the region.”—Robin Kirk, author of More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America’s War in Colombia

“Lesley Gill’s The School of the Americas is an ambitious book that provides the reader with a thorough analysis of the School of the Americas (SOA), and the effects of the SOA’s training on the trainees and on two Andean Communities.”

-- Silvia Borzutzky Latin American Research Review

“The notion of impunity which Lesley Gill develops with many insights has far-reaching ramifications and consequences. . . . Gill’s clarity appeals to our reason, love of truth, and common human decency. . .”

-- Bill Griffin Catholic Worker

“This book is a hugely impressive, detailed, and fascinating cultural history of jazz in Britain and should be recommended not only to cultural historians but also to historians of the Cold War, the British Left, and those interested in race relations and national identity in twentieth-century Britain.”

-- James J. Nott American Historical Review

"[B]reathtaking. . . . This book should make one proud to be in the same profession as its author and appalled at the implications of having a U.S. citizenship."

-- Gavin Smith Journal of Latin American Anthropology

"[I]n the wake of recent revelations that suspected terrorists captured by CIA and U.S. special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq have been deliberately hidden from the Red Cross, severely tortured and in some cases abused to death, this book remains immediately relevant. The questions at the heart of the controversy over the school -- is the U.S. military teaching the art of atrocity to Latin American soldiers, and do Americans bear responsibility for the horrors that many of the supposedly 'professionalized' graduates of the school have committed? -- take on new meaning as the United States engages in actions that bear a damning resemblance to the dirty wars fought in years past in Central and South America."

-- Peter Kornbluh Washington Post Book World

"Gill was able to examine the school's folkways and rhetoric, thanks to glasnost-like levels of administrative cooperation. Lessons in thinking in terms of how to 'kill and maim' opposition and to 'dehumanize' those who persist. Gill then traces the paths of various graduates of the school and links their activities directly to the torture and death of 'Latin American peasants, workers, students [and] human rights activists'--i.e., 'opposition.' "

-- Publishers Weekly

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
List of Illustrations Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Acknowledgments Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Prologue: The Teflon Assassin Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
Introduction: The Military, Political Violence, and Impunity Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Chapter 1: Georgia Not on Their Minds Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	23
Chapter 2: De-Mining Humanitarianism Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	43
Chapter 3: Foot Soldiers of the U.S. Empire Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	59
Chapter 4: Pathways to Power Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	90
Chapter 5: Strategic Alliances Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	110
Chapter 6: Human Wrongs and Rights Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
Chapter 7: Disordering the Andes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	163
Chapter 8: Targeting the ‘‘School of Assassins’’ Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
Conclusion: The School of America Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
References Cited Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	259
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271

Language: English
Publisher: Duke University Press
Pages
- Main content: 300

eBook

Published: September 13, 2004
ISBN: 9780822386001