The Salvador Option

The Salvador Option PDF Author: Russell Crandall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316483436
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 719

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Book Description
El Salvador's civil war between the Salvadoran government and Marxist guerrillas erupted into full force in early 1981 and endured for eleven bloody years. Unwilling to tolerate an advance of Soviet and Cuban-backed communism in its geopolitical backyard, the US provided over six billion dollars in military and economic aid to the Salvadoran government. El Salvador was a deeply controversial issue in American society and divided Congress and the public into left and right. Relying on thousands of archival documents as well as interviews with participants on both sides of the war, The Salvador Option offers a thorough and fair-minded interpretation of the available evidence. If success is defined narrowly, there is little question that the Salvador Option achieved its Cold War strategic objectives of checking communism. Much more difficult, however, is to determine what human price this 'success' entailed - a toll suffered almost entirely by Salvadorans in this brutal civil war.

The Salvador Option

The Salvador Option PDF Author: Russell Crandall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107134595
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 719

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Book Description
This book offers a thorough and fair-minded interpretation of the role of the United States in El Salvador's civil war.

The Salvador Option

The Salvador Option PDF Author: Russell Crandall
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1316483436
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 719

Get Book Here

Book Description
El Salvador's civil war between the Salvadoran government and Marxist guerrillas erupted into full force in early 1981 and endured for eleven bloody years. Unwilling to tolerate an advance of Soviet and Cuban-backed communism in its geopolitical backyard, the US provided over six billion dollars in military and economic aid to the Salvadoran government. El Salvador was a deeply controversial issue in American society and divided Congress and the public into left and right. Relying on thousands of archival documents as well as interviews with participants on both sides of the war, The Salvador Option offers a thorough and fair-minded interpretation of the available evidence. If success is defined narrowly, there is little question that the Salvador Option achieved its Cold War strategic objectives of checking communism. Much more difficult, however, is to determine what human price this 'success' entailed - a toll suffered almost entirely by Salvadorans in this brutal civil war.

Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador

Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War in El Salvador PDF Author: Elisabeth Jean Wood
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521010504
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Table of contents

Stories of Civil War in El Salvador

Stories of Civil War in El Salvador PDF Author: Erik Ching
Publisher: UNC Press Books
ISBN: 1469628678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
El Salvador's civil war began in 1980 and ended twelve bloody years later. It saw extreme violence on both sides, including the terrorizing and targeting of civilians by death squads, recruitment of child soldiers, and the death and disappearance of more than 75,000 people. Examining El Salvador's vibrant life-story literature written in the aftermath of this terrible conflict--including memoirs and testimonials--Erik Ching seeks to understand how the war has come to be remembered and rebattled by Salvadorans and what that means for their society today. Ching identifies four memory communities that dominate national postwar views: civilian elites, military officers, guerrilla commanders, and working class and poor testimonialists. Pushing distinct and divergent stories, these groups are today engaged in what Ching terms a "narrative battle" for control over the memory of the war. Their ongoing publications in the marketplace of ideas tend to direct Salvadorans' attempts to negotiate the war's meaning and legacy, and Ching suggests that a more open, coordinated reconciliation process is needed in this postconflict society. In the meantime, El Salvador, fractured by conflicting interpretations of its national trauma, is hindered in dealing with the immediate problems posed by the nexus of neoliberalism, gang violence, and outmigration.

Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerrillas

Strategy and Tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN Guerrillas PDF Author: Gustavo Perdomo
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313022011
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 218

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Book Description
This book examines the military organization, strategy, and tactics of the Salvadoran FMLN guerrillas during their efforts to overthrow the government. It is largely based on the authors' personal collections of guerrilla documents captured in the war, interviews with former and captured guerrillas, and personal combat experience during one of the fiercest wars fought in the Western hemisphere in the 20th century. The book describes the guerrilla tactics from a technical point of view, and their evolution during the war in El Salvador. It includes discussions of such tactical concepts as concentration and deconcentration, urban combat, anti-air defense, the use of mines, and homemade weapons. It contains a chapter on the FMLN special forces—they were responsible for most of the spectacular attacks of the war—and it examines the sophisticated logistical system of the FMLN that made the prolonged war possible. Wherever possible, these concepts are illustrated by actual combat experiences from sources on both sides of the conflict. An important text for all concerned with guerrilla warfare and counterinsurgency. Latin Americanists and students of the developing world will also find much of interest.

The Salvadoran Crucible

The Salvadoran Crucible PDF Author: Brian D'Haeseleer
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700625127
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
In 1979, with El Salvador growing ever more unstable and ripe for revolution, the United States undertook a counterinsurgency intervention that over the following decade would become Washington’s largest nation-building effort since Vietnam. In 2003, policymakers looked to this “successful” undertaking as a model for US intervention in Iraq. In fact, Brian D’Haeseleer argues in The Salvadoran Crucible, the US counterinsurgency in El Salvador produced no more than a stalemate, and in the process inflicted tremendous suffering on Salvadorans for a limited amount of foreign policy gains. D’Haeseleer’s book is a deeply informed, dispassionate account of how the Salvadoran venture took shape, what it actually accomplished, and what lessons it holds. A historical analysis of the origins of US counterinsurgency policy provides context for understanding how precedents informed US intervention in El Salvador. What follows is a detailed, in-depth view of how the counterinsurgency unfolded—the nature, logic, and effectiveness of the policies, initiatives, and operations promoted by American strategists. D’Haeseleer’s account disputes the “success” narrative by showing that El Salvador’s achievements, mainly the spread of democracy, occurred as a result not of the American intervention but of the insurgents’ war against the state. Most significantly, The Salvadoran Crucible contends that the reforms enacted during the war failed to address the underlying causes of the conflict, which today continue to reverberate in El Salvador. The book thus suggests a reassessment of the history of American counterinsurgency, and a course-correction for the future.

El Salvadors Civil War

El Salvadors Civil War PDF Author: Hugh Byrne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781685856120
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Byrne's in depth study of El Salvador's civil war demonstrates that the strategies adopted by incumbent regimes and insurgent movements are key to explaining why revolutions occur and the conditions under which they succeed or fail.

The History of El Salvador

The History of El Salvador PDF Author: Christopher M. White
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313349290
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
Plagued by political instability, economic hardships, and massacres of innocent men, women, and children, El Salvador has fought for freedom throughout the centuries. No other reference source captures the suffering and adversities this ever-evolving country has faced. El Salvador's tumultuous history and recent past are clearly documented in this comprehensive volume, filling a void on high school and public library shelves. This work offers the most current coverage on this tiny Latin American nation's struggles, covering from the pre-Columbian era to economics and politics in the 21st Century. Complete with interviews and accounts from former rebels and guerillas and other victims of the country's struggle for freedom, this volume highlights a unique account of El Salvador's past-the viewpoints from the civilians who lived through it. Students will find The History of El Salvador to be an invaluable source for social studies, history, current events, and political science classes.

Revolution In El Salvador

Revolution In El Salvador PDF Author: Tommie Sue Montgomery
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 0429977239
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Since the first edition of this book appeared in 1982, El Salvador has experienced the most radical social change in its history. Ten years of civil war, in which a tenacious and creative revolutionary movement battled a larger, better-equipped, US-supported army to a standstill, have ended with 20 months of negotiations and a peace accord that promises to change the course of Salvadorean society and politics. This book traces the history of El Salvador, focusing on the oligarchy and the armed forces, that shaped the Salvadorean army and political system. Concentrating on the period since 1960, the author sheds new light on the US role in the increasing militarization of the country and the origins of the oligarchy-army rupture in 1979. Separate chapters deal with the Catholic church and the revolutionary organizations, which challenged the status quo after 1968. In the new edition, Dr Montgomery continues the story from 1982 to the present, offering a detailed account of the evolution of the war. She examines why Duarte's two inaugural promises, peace and economic prosperity could not be fulfilled and analyzes the electoral victory of the oligarchy in 1989. The final chapters closely follow the peace negotiations, ending with an assessment of the peace accords, and evaluate the future prospects for El Salvador and for the 1994 elections.

Authoritarian El Salvador

Authoritarian El Salvador PDF Author: Erik Ching
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268076995
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description
In December 1931, El Salvador’s civilian president, Arturo Araujo, was overthrown in a military coup. Such an event was hardly unique in Salvadoran history, but the 1931 coup proved to be a watershed. Araujo had been the nation’s first democratically elected president, and although no one could have foreseen the result, the coup led to five decades of uninterrupted military rule, the longest run in modern Latin American history. Furthermore, six weeks after coming to power, the new military regime oversaw the crackdown on a peasant rebellion in western El Salvador that is one of the worst episodes of state-sponsored repression in modern Latin American history. Democracy would not return to El Salvador until the 1990s, and only then after a brutal twelve-year civil war. In Authoritarian El Salvador: Politics and the Origins of the Military Regimes, 1880-1940, Erik Ching seeks to explain the origins of the military regime that came to power in 1931. Based on his comprehensive survey of the extant documentary record in El Salvador’s national archive, Ching argues that El Salvador was typified by a longstanding tradition of authoritarianism dating back to the early- to mid-nineteenth century. The basic structures of that system were based on patron-client relationships that wove local, regional, and national political actors into complex webs of rival patronage networks. Decidedly nondemocratic in practice, the system nevertheless exhibited highly paradoxical traits: it remained steadfastly loyal to elections as the mechanism by which political aspirants acquired office, and it employed a political discourse laden with appeals to liberty and free suffrage. That blending of nondemocratic authoritarianism with populist reformism and rhetoric set the precedent for military rule for the next fifty years.