The revolutionary movements that emerged frequently in Latin America over the past century promoted goals that included overturning dictatorships, confronting economic inequalities, and creating what Cuban revolutionary hero Che Guevara called the &"new man.&" But, in fact, many of the &"new men&" who participated in these movements were not men. Thousands of them were women. This book aims to show why a full understanding of revolutions needs to take account of gender. Karen Kampwirth writes here about the women who joined the revolutionary movements in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and the Mexican state of Chiapas, about how they became guerrillas, and how that experience changed their lives. In the last chapter she compares what happened in these countries with Cuba in the 1950s, where few women participated in the guerrilla struggle. Drawing on more than two hundred interviews, Kampwirth examines the political, structural, ideological, and personal factors that allowed many women to escape from the constraints of their traditional roles and led some to participate in guerrilla activities. Her emphasis on the experiences of revolutionaries adds a new dimension to the study of revolution, which has focused mainly on explaining how states are overthrown.

The rationale stated for studying radical women of Latin America is first to throw light on the development of dictatorship and authoritarianism, second to transcend the stereotype of inherently violent men and inherently peaceful women, and finally to demonstrate that there is no automatic sisterhood among women even of the same class and ethnicity. Brief chronologies of three countries each in Central and South America open the two sections. The contributors are historians and political scientists primarily from the US. Annotation copyrighted by Book News Inc., Portland, OR

Organized around single country studies embedded in key historical moments, this book introduces students to the shifting and varied guerrilla history of Latin America from the late 1950s to the present. It brings together academics and those directly involved in aspects of the guerrilla movement, to understand each country’s experience with guerrilla warfare and revolutionary activism. The book is divided in four thematic parts after two opening chapters that analyze the tradition of military involvement in Latin American politics and the parallel tradition of insurgency and coup effort against dictatorship. The first two parts examine active guerrilla movements in the 1960s and 1970s with case studies including Bolivia, Nicaragua, Peru, Argentina, Chile and Uruguay. Part 3 is dedicated to the Central American Civil Wars of the 1980s and 1990s in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. Part 4 examines specific guerrilla movements which require special attention. Chapters include Colombia’s complicated guerrilla scenery; the rivalling Shining Path and Tupac Amaru guerrillas in Peru; small guerrilla movements in Mexico which were never completely documented; and transnational guerrilla operations in the Southern Cone. The concluding chapter presents a balance of the entire Latin American guerrilla at present. Superbly accessible, while retaining the complexity of Latin American politics, Latin American Guerrilla Movements represents the best historical account of revolutionary movements in the region, which students will find of great use owing to its coverage and insights.

Taking its starting point from women's contributions to the French revolution, this important anthology goes far beyond any particular historical, European or American context and expands its scope in space and time to an all-inclusive global theme, namely the contributions of radical women towards an ever-changing world and its revolutionary transformations everywhere. The superbly edited essays by diverse contributors from various continents and disciplines explore a wide platform of women's revolutionary involvements and elucidate the broad range of contributions by women scholars, scientists and activists to movements of social transformation, as well as to a reexamination of established methods of cultural analysis from enlightened liberalism to Marxism. The contributions of women scholars and activists from Africa, Asia and Latin America are particularly significant in that they transcend and expand European/North American feminism as relevant primarily to its own socio-cultural context and focus on women acting in terms of their own non-Western traditions and cultures, that is, on non-Western models based on indigenous strategies of social transformation. This rich anthology shuns any postulation of a single global model for revolution. Yet, despite the emergence of a `problematic relationship between Western or Western educated theorists and the causes of the oppressed', women's diverse social, cultural and historical experiences and strategies are united in this edition, as in their common causes, as emphasized by the following statement in the introduction: `the female body has become ... a privileged site for social analysis in the context of international capitalism as well as in the critique of traditional socialism.' Sabine Jell-Bahlsen, Ogbuide Films Women and Revolution covers an enormous socio-historical space, four continents - Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America – and quite a few countries within them. This huge field of human experience is looked at from the focal point which runs explicitly and implicitly through all nineteen chapters: the active if not revolutionary role women have played individually and collectively in various determining social situations, a role regularly suppressed by the coercive power of institutionalized domination. The impetus for this endeavor was the commemoration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, an occasion to take an in-depth look at its less obvious agendas, through a focus on the activity of women, and on Olympe de Gouges in particular. But as Olympe de Gouges became acquainted with Mr. Guillotine, the considerable role of women became suppressed not only actually but as a kind of damnatio memoriae which the old Romans had already invented. As this work shows, there have been multiple forms and contents through which women have taken history into their own hands and have participated in emancipatory struggles throughout the world. They are at their best in their use of the resources of local village traditions, of dense social contexts, of mutual aid and in turning such grassroots resources into radical democratic struggles for the future. A fascinating and timely book!. Wolf-Dieter Narr, Freie Universität Berlin The vital role played by women in struggles for social transformation has scarcely been appreciated, and with the sense of defeat that hangs over the revolutionary project, stands to be further forgotten. That is why the publication of Women and Revolution is both welcome and necessary – on intellectual and scholarly grounds, but also because these are stories which have to be told if we are to resume the march toward a better world. Joel Kovel, Bard College

In many Latin American countries, guerrilla struggle and feminism have been linked in surprising ways. Women were mobilized by the thousands to promote revolutionary agendas that had little to do with increasing gender equality. They ended up creating a uniquely Latin American version of feminism that combined revolutionary goals of economic equality and social justice with typically feminist aims of equality, nonviolence, and reproductive rights. Drawing on more than two hundred interviews with women in Nicaragua, El Salvador, and the Mexican state of Chiapas, Karen Kampwirth tells the story of how the guerrilla wars led to the rise of feminism, why certain women became feminists, and what sorts of feminist movements they built. Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution: Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas explores how the violent politics of guerrilla struggle could be related to the peaceful politics of feminism. It considers the gains, losses, and internal conflicts within revolutionary women’s organizations. Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution challenges old assumptions regarding revolutionary movements and the legacy of those movements for the politics of daily life. It will appeal to a broad, interdisciplinary audience in political science, sociology, anthropology, women’s studies, and Latin American studies as well as to general readers with an interest in international feminism.

In this unique encyclopedia, 120 leading scholars from around the world provide comprehensive treatment of the role of women in war, from the first written history to the present. This authoritative encyclopedia presents the work of leading scholars from all over the world to give the first detailed coverage of the role of women in wars throughout history. Histories of war are typically histories of men: great leaders and heroic fighters. Yet the roles of women often receive only limited coverage. Except for such notables as Joan of Arc, traditional histories give short shrift to women as leaders and fighters. Similarly, the direct victimization—particularly sexual abuse as a weapon of terror and domination—and cultural dislocations women suffer in war float as background, without detailed coverage. This work represents a first, devoted in its entirety to thorough examination of all aspects of women in war. For the first time, readers have a single source for information on the scope of women's role in war, and war's effects on them.

In this comparative survey of guerrilla movements in Latin America, Timothy Wickham-Crowley explores the origins and outcomes of rural insurgencies in nearly a dozen cases since 1956. Focusing on the personal backgrounds of the guerrillas themselves and on national social conditions, the author explains why guerrillas emerged strongly in certain countries but not others. He considers, for example, under what circumstances guerrillas acquire military strength and why they do--or do not--secure substantial support from the peasantry in rural areas.

This work includes 1000 entries covering the spectrum of defining women in the contemporary world.

This groundbreaking three-volume encyclopedia is the first to focus exclusively on the revolutionary movements that have changed the course of history from the American and French Revolutions to the present. ABC-CLIO is proud to present an encyclopedia that reaches around the globe to explore the most momentous and impactful political revolutions of the last two-and-a-half centuries, exploring their origins, courses, consequences, and influences on subsequent individuals and groups seeking to change their own governments and societies. In three volumes, Revolutionary Movements in World History covers 79 revolutions, from the American and French uprisings of the late 18th century to the rise of communism, Nazism, and fascism; from Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro to the Ayatollah, al Qaeda, and the fall of the Berlin wall. Written by leading experts from a number of nations, this insightful, cutting-edge work combines detailed portrayals of specific revolutions with essays on important overarching themes. Full of revealing insights, compelling personalities, and some of the most remarkable moments in the world's human drama, Revolutionary Movements in World History offers a new way of looking at how societies reinvent themselves.

The author shows how former guerilla women in three Central American countries made the transition from insurgents to mainstream political players in the democratization process.