{"product_id":"silence-on-the-mountain-9780822333685","title":"Silence on the Mountain","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAuthor reconstructs the unwritten, taboo history of the Guatemalan civil war,  focusing on the peasants who picked coffee, supported guerrilla movements of the 1970s and 1980s, and suffered the most when the military government retaliated with violence.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTrade Review\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“\u003ci\u003eSilence on the Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e has the seductive allure and vivid characters of the finest fiction and the penetration of the most elegant journalism. Mr. Wilkinson’s painstaking work has crucial lessons for our government’s future role not only in Latin America but in the entire world. Above all, his book serves literature’s deepest impulse: to bring forth truth out of silence.”—The 2003 pen\/Martha Albrand Award for First Nonfiction citation\u003cbr\u003e“This is an extraordinary tale, and an extremely well-told one. Written like a modern explorer’s journal, \u003ci\u003eSilence on the Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e is the account of Daniel Wilkinson’s self-appointed mission to uncover dark secrets in a shady corner of Guatemala. With humility, humor, honesty . . . he has given us a rare and intimate understanding of how this achingly beautiful country became one of the Western Hemisphere’s most brutalized places.”— Jon Lee Anderson, author of \u003ci\u003eChe Guevara: A Revolutionary Life\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Wilkinson sets out to tell the story of Guatemala’s recently ended thirty-six-year internal war through the secret history of one venerable coffee plantation. The result reads like a novel, narrated by a disarmingly funny, perceptive, deeply humane young American who knows how to wear his courage lightly. You feel as if you are riding with Wilkinson on his beat-up motorcycle up muddy, dangerous jungle trails into the heart of a secretive country just waking up from a long nightmare. . . . A brilliant and important book.”— Francisco Goldman, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Long Night of White Chickens\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A young human rights lawyer with an eye for detail and the gumption to ride a rickety motorcycle to get to the bottom of a story until now largely untold, Wilkinson has written a book full of grim details about exploitation of coffee pickers, genocidal massacres, and frustrated leftist organizing.\" -- Clifford Krauss * New York Times Book Review *\u003cbr\u003e\"The author's style is taut and precise, but it is the Guatemalans themselves who speak with the greatest eloquence.\" * The New Yorker *\u003cbr\u003e“Part travelogue, part historical thriller, and part chronicle of self-awakening, the book does indeed resonate with ‘big picture’ subjects such as terrorism, globalization, human rights, and migration.” -- Alvis Dunn * Hispanic American Historical Review *\u003cbr\u003e\"[\u003ci\u003eSilence on the Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e] document[s] unthinkable horror, insisting as we try to turn away that attention must be paid, that what happened there must never happen again, that the past isn't past at all.\" -- Joanne Omang * Washington Post *\u003cbr\u003e\"[A] page-turning work of detective nonfiction.\" -- Diana Nelson Jones * Pittsburgh Post-Gazette *\u003cbr\u003e\"[C]ombines the probity of a serious historian with the literary instincts of a crime writer . . . peeling back layers of silence and deceit in ways that are reminiscent of what Marcel Ophüls's film \u003ci\u003eThe Sorrow and the Pity\u003c\/i\u003e did for Vichy France.\" -- Peter Canby * The Nation *\u003cbr\u003e\"Given the recidivist nature of U.S. policy in Latin America, Wilkinson's book [is] a well-timed reminder of the potentially devastating consequences of our successes.\" -- Alex Stone * Washington Monthly *\u003cbr\u003e\"Anyone who knows little or nothing about Guatemala can pick up \u003ci\u003eSilence on the Mountain\u003c\/i\u003e and be reliably filled in. Students of anthropology will appreciate its textual accessibility. Specialists, too, should not be disappointed and will surely admire the commitment and dedication that went into the book's composition.\" -- W. George Lovell * American Anthropologist *\u003cbr\u003e\"Wilkinson's quest for information takes him from the upper to the lower to the middle classes, through the different tiers of Guatemala's dependent export economy, all the way to your morning latte.\" -- David Stoll * The New Republic *\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI. A House Burned \u003cbr\u003e The Owner 3\u003cbr\u003e The Student 7\u003cbr\u003e The Battlefield 11\u003cbr\u003e Exhumation 19\u003cbr\u003e II. Ashes Fell \u003cbr\u003e Rumor 29\u003cbr\u003e Travelogue 32\u003cbr\u003e Natural History 42\u003cbr\u003e Bildungsroman 48\u003cbr\u003e Revelation 56\u003cbr\u003e Decree 65\u003cbr\u003e III. A Future Was Buried \u003cbr\u003e A Dangerous Question 83\u003cbr\u003e The Law That Would Change the World 157\u003cbr\u003e Betrayal 168\u003cbr\u003e Burials 180\u003cbr\u003e IV. And They Were the Eruption \u003cbr\u003e The Savages 193\u003cbr\u003e Sacuhum 199\u003cbr\u003e The Guerrillas 217\u003cbr\u003e The Politicians 252\u003cbr\u003e The Terrorist 307\u003cbr\u003e The Defeated 337\u003cbr\u003e The Storytellers 350\u003cbr\u003e List of Names 361\u003cbr\u003e Notes on Sources 362\u003cbr\u003e Selected Bibliography 367\u003cbr\u003e Acknowledgments 372\u003cbr\u003e Index 374","brand":"Duke University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":49083684356439,"sku":"9780822333685","price":19.94,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0817\/1739\/5799\/files\/9780822333685.jpg?v=1725549712","url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/silence-on-the-mountain-9780822333685","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}