Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954

Description

The most thorough account yet available of a revolution that saw the first true agrarian reform in Central America, this book is also a penetrating analysis of the tragic destruction of that revolution. In no other Central American country was U.S. intervention so decisive and so ruinous, charges Piero Gleijeses. Yet he shows that the intervention can be blamed on no single convenient villain. Extensively researched and written with conviction and passion, this study analyzes the history and downfall of what seems in retrospect to have been Guatemala's best government, the short-lived regime of Jacobo Arbenz, overthrown in 1954, by a CIA-orchestrated coup.--Foreign Affairs Piero Gleijeses offers a historical road map that may serve as a guide for future generations. . . . [Readers] will come away with an understanding of the foundation of a great historical tragedy.--Saul Landau, The Progressive [Gleijeses's] academic rigor does not prevent him from creating an accessible, lucid, almost journalistic account of an episode whose tragic consequences still reverberate.--Paul Kantz, Commonweal Contents Illustrations Figures Acknowledgments A Note on Documentation Abbreviations Prologue: Witnesses 1. The Era of Ubico 2. The Presidency of Juan José Arévalo 3. The Death of Francisco Arana 4. The Election of Jacobo Arbenz 5. The United States and Arévalo: Arévalo’s Sins 6. The United States and Arévalo: The U.S. Response 7. The World of Jacobo Arbenz 8. The Agrarian Reform 9. The Revolutionary Forces 10. The “Christian” Opposition 11. The International Conspiracy against Guatemala 12. The Caracas Conference 13. The Agony of the Regime 14. The Fall of Arbenz 15. Conclusion Epilogue: The Fate of the Defeated Bibliography Index