In the English-speaking world, Colombia is the least understood of Latin American countries. Its human tragedy is generally ignored or exploited for political ends. In this work, Forrest Hylton, who lives and works in Colombia, explores its history of 150 years of political conflict, characterized by radical-popular mobilization and reactionary repression.
Evil Hour in Colombia shows how patterns of political conflict, from the mid-nineteenth century to today's guerilla narco-traffickers and paramilitaries, explain the wear currently destroying Colombian lives, property, communities and territory. In doing so, it traces how Colombia's "coffee capitalism" gave way to the cattle and cocaine republic of the 1980s, and how land, wealth, and political power have been steadily accumulated by the light-skinned top of the social pyramid through a brutal combination of terror, expropriation, and exploitation.
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About the Author:
Forrest Hylton is co-author of Revolutionary Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics and author of Vanishing Acts: A Tragedy.
From Publishers Weekly:
Colombia's long-drawn-out internal strife between guerrillas, paramilitaries and the state is confusing to many outsiders. The numerous groups fighting for land and power, combined with the presence of powerful narco-traffickers, have created an environment of violent chaos and political conflict. Hylton, a researcher in history at New York University, helps make sense of this disorder in his detailed and concise history of Colombia over the last 150 years. In this short book, he manages to create a full picture of Colombian history and the violence that marks it. At a quick, consistent pace, the book moves through the early causes of radical mobilization in the mid-19th century and the system of repression that emerged in response. Hylton examines the fractured social and political circumstances that spawned the extremist groups as well as the forces, such as the rise of coffee exports after 1880, that have fueled them. He also examines the major role the United States has played in Colombia's history, and how the "war on drugs" was often executed with Washington's broader political and economic goals in mind. By the end of this well-researched book, Hylton clarifies Colombia's endemic violence as a social and political phenomenon. (Nov.)
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- PublisherVerso
- Publication date2006
- ISBN 10 1844675513
- ISBN 13 9781844675517
- BindingPaperback
- Edition number1
- Number of pages208
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