Forgotten Peace: Reform, Violence, and the Making of Contemporary Colombia

by Robert A. Karl

Overview

Forgotten Peace examines Colombian society’s attempt to move beyond the Western Hemisphere’s worst mid-century conflict and shows how that effort molded notions of belonging and understandings of the past. Robert A. Karl reconstructs encounters between government officials, rural peoples, provincial elites, and urban intellectuals during a crucial conjuncture that saw reformist optimism transform into alienation. In addition to offering a sweeping reinterpretation of Colombian history—including the most detailed account of the origins of the FARC insurgency in any language—Karl provides a Colombian vantage on global processes of democratic transition, development, and memory formation in the 1950s and 1960s. Broad in scope, Forgotten Peace challenges contemporary theories of violence in Latin America.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520293922
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	03/28/2017
Series:	Violence in Latin American History , #3
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	344
Product dimensions:	6.20(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Robert A. Karl is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: Peace and Violence in Colombian History
1. Messenger of a New Colombia
2. Encounters with Violence, 1957–1958
3. The Making of the Creole Peace, 1958–1960
4. Peace and Violence, 1959–1960
5. Reformist Paths, 1960–1964
6. Books and Bandits, 1962–1964
7. Confrontation, 1963–1966
Epilogue: The Making of “La Violencia”

A Note on Citations, Institutional Abbreviations, and Archives
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

"Robert A. Karl’s monograph on the peacemaking project that helped end La Violencia stands as one of the best among them."

American Historical Review

…a seamless tapestry of interwoven narratives…this is a powerful and beautiful book. A book to be read, and a peace to be rescued from oblivion.

Journal of Genocide Research - Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín

"Engagingly written and peppered with anecdotes, Karl’s book is both a part of and a rejoinder to the new generation of studies of Latin America and the Cold War....Karl’s history celebrates a remarkable effort at peace-making in Colombia while also reminding us of its tremendous challenges."

International Affairs

"Robert A. Karl’s remarkable monograph offers an insightful and compelling perspective...  an exemplary piece of historical writing." 

ReVista

Robert Karl’s new book is a significant achievement. This fine-grained political history demonstrates that Colombia’s multiple chronologies of violence can only be understood by attending first to the regional.

Hispanic American Historical Review

"It’s really a wonderful work, bringing readers back to those post–Cuban Revolution days, when Colombia teetered between promise and peril."

The Nation

"The pressing relevance of Karl’s book for the present, his explanation of how peace is constructed and then forgotten, is overwhelming. Summing Up: Highly recommended."

CHOICE

"...a beautiful and important book..."

El Espectador

Karl’s work is intellectual history at its best, a soft telling of the intricate moment-to-moment interplay between ideas and daily life, between daily life and ideas.

The Americas

"Robert A.Karl's remarkable monograph offers an insightful and compelling perspective on this contemporary comment as Colombians work to implement peace after decades of conflict."

ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America

…a seamless tapestry of interwoven narratives…this is a powerful and beautiful book. A book to be read, and a peace to be rescued from oblivion.

Journal of Genocide Research - Francisco Gutiérrez-Sanín