Description
Book SynopsisOn 11 September 1973, President Salvador Allende of Chile, Latin America's first democratically elected Marxist president, was deposed in a violent
coup d'état. Early that morning the phone lines to Allende's office were cut, army officers loyal to the republic were arrested and shortly afterwards bombs from four British-made Hawker Hunter jets began slamming into the presidential palace. Allende refused to leave his post, making broadcasts to encourage the Chilean people until the last pro-government radio station was silenced. Later that morning he was found dead, with an AK-47 that had been a gift from Fidel Castro by his side. The coup had been planned for months, even years before it actually happened. In fact, from the moment Allende's electoral victory in 1970 became a possibility, business leaders in Chile, extreme right-wing groups, high-ranking officers in the Chilean military and the US administration and the CIA worked together to secure a prompt and dramatic end to
Trade ReviewThe author deftly follows two strands – political developments in Chile itself and the global context that rendered a seemingly mild version of Latin American socialism so unpalatable for US government and business interests … He is at his strongest when tracing the social and cultural history of the movement, the "revolution from below" involving "shoemakers, weavers, poets and musicians [and] other areas of social creativity and production, such as factory labour, mural painting and literature"
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John Kampfner, Observer *
In
Story of a Death Foretold, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera vividly demonstrates the extent of US complicity in the coup that brought Pinochet to power *
Observer Books of the Year *
Fascinating… commendable for [its] originality and research *
Washington Post *
