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“The remarkable strength of this book is its lucid, intelligent, artful narratives. Chapter after chapter, Karl takes scattered local and national actors and creates a stunningly integrated and compelling story about what he conceives of as the rise and fall of an effort at forging a national peace in Colombia during the complex period of 1957 to 1964. This is historical storytelling at its best.”—Paul Gootenberg, Stony Brook University
“
Forgotten Peace provides a sweeping reinterpretation of the mid-twentieth-century conflicts that became known as La Violencia, with important implications for peace efforts today. In a vivid narrative that traces the interactions of local actors, intellectuals, and the Colombian state, Karl provides an entirely new explanation for the emergence of the FARC guerrillas from an ambivalent and fragmented peace process.”—Nancy P. Appelbaum, author of
Mapping the Country of Regions: The Chorographic Commission of Nineteenth-Century Colombia
List 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
About the author
Robert A. Karl is Assistant Professor of History at Princeton University.
Summary
Examines Colombian society's attempt to move beyond the Western Hemisphere's worst mid-century conflict and how that effort molded notions of belonging and understandings of the past. In this book, the author reconstructs encounters between government officials, rural peoples, provincial elites, and more.
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“…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.”
