"In a country still torn over the war by polarizing accusations amplified by righteous self-exculpation, Garrard-Burnett listens carefully to as many sides as her sources allow-the Left, the Right, Catholic activists, evangelicals, the US embassy-to conclude that states turn genocidal, not just because they can, but because both perpetrators and public come to see their self-preservation, if not salvation, at stake. In helping us understand better that self-preservation, this book also speaks with respect-and hope-to the survivors. We should all be listening carefully."
--John Watanabe, Associate Professor of Anthropology, Dartmouth College
"This is a careful narrative and sober analysis of Mott's seventeenth-month regime in Guatemala."--
Religious Studies ReviewVirginia Garrard-Burnett's examination of General Efraín Ríos Montt is one of the best available historicalpolitical analyses of Guatemala's brutal armed conflict...Garrard-Burnett is arguably one of the most important contemporary historians of Protestantism in Latin
America. In this slim volume, she not only demonstrates her deep and nuanced understanding of the evangelical movement in Guatemala but also explains
the dynamics and contours of the political crisis that brought Ríos Montt to power in 1982."--
American Historical ReviewThis work secures a solid place among some of the dominant works in modern Latin American historiography, particularly in its positioning within the field of subaltern studies. While remaining sensitive to the voice and agency of the victims of the genocide, Garrard- Burnett relies heavily on truth commission reports to provide a clear analysis of the influences of evangelical rhetoric that saturated Guatemala's violent struggles of the late Cold War. This useful, insightful work deserves a wide reading among students and specialists alike."--
Hispanic American Historical Review