![]() ![]() The tragic death of Che, after a doomed rural guerrilla campaign in eastern Bolivia, had a profound effect on the country s politics. There was an extraordinarily vital popular resistance, and the unusual sophistication of working-class politics forms a stirring narrative. The succession of military dictatorships from 1964 to 1982 are described, but this period was by no means one of unrelieved quietude. It was channeled into a more familiar pattern of repression and dictatorship only after bitter struggles, and Dunkerley analyses the pressures that compromised it, providing lucid accounts of the country s economy, political history and class structure, as well as its relations with the United States. The revolution of 1952 was, with the Cuban revolution, the most radical attempt in the western hemisphere since the Second World War to break the cycle of capitalist underdevelopment. Dunkerley here redresses the balance in a masterly survey of Bolivian society since the early 1950s. The country s location at the heart of Latin America has not, however, guaranteed it the attention it deserves. "Rebellion in the Veins"demonstrates that behind the succession of coups lies an exceptional and coherent record of political struggle. But in general it is for political disorder. Not so long ago it was for Che Guevara, for whose death its citizens are on occasions held to be collectively responsible. Bolivia is a country with a reputation, writes James Dunkerley. ![]()
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