LATEST SALES & OFFERS: PROMOTIONS

Close Notification

Your cart does not contain any items

Walking Ghosts

Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia

Steven Dudley

$118

Hardback

Not in-store but you can order this
How long will it take?

QTY:

English
Routledge
29 December 2003
In Walking Ghosts , the author expertly crafts story after story of politicians, drug kingpins, revolutionaries and killers to map out the complicated and murderous absurdity that is everyday life in Colombia. The current government there is trying to negotiate a peace settlement with FARC, the largest guerilla group. With close to 20,000 troups, FARC remains the most powerful guerilla group in our hemisphere today. But as in Israel or Ireland, peace is not really peace. Worried about FARC's strength and its role in the drug trade, the United States recently approved a USD1.3 billion aide package to help the Colombian government fight FARC. Steven Dudley seeks to make sense of this complicated conflict by focusing on the stories of key actors in the struggle,

from the earliest days to the present. He has seen the civil war up close: dead bodies, paramilitaries, guerillas, victims and survivors. He has witnessed political parties grappling for power by any means necessary, and he's spoken to all

sides and asked the difficult questions. Fast-paced and informative, Walking Ghosts presents a window into a conflict likely to shape the politics of this hemisphere for years to c
By:  
Imprint:   Routledge
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 229mm,  Width: 152mm,  Spine: 19mm
Weight:   612g
ISBN:   9780415933032
ISBN 10:   041593303X
Pages:   314
Publication Date:  
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Primary
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active

For five years, Steven Dudley filed regular dispatches from Colombia for The Washington Post,National PublicRadio and The Economist. His longer articles have also appeared in The American Prospect,The ColumbiaJournalism Review, The Nation, In These Times and TheProgressive. He now lives in Miami.

Reviews for Walking Ghosts: Murder and Guerrilla Politics in Colombia

A brave, meticulously researched story of missed opportunities, treachery and revenge, and the burden of history on a country that has rarely known peace. Steve Dudley has visited more of Colombia's harsh venues, and sat patiently in them longer than any other foreign journalist, to understand the forces that have propelled Colombia's conflict for decades and decades. What he has produced is a passionate narrative, rich with the characters and landscape of a remarkable country, that explains why Colombia's confounding war continues to resist all attempts to stop it.. -Scott Wilson, Andean bureau chief of the Washington Post Steven Dudley's haunting account of the rise and blood-soaked fall of Colombia's Patriotic Union (Union Patriotica) party is essential reading for anyone who wants to fully understand the causes of Latin America's longest-running civil war. A brave and unflinching book. -Joseph Contreras, Latin America Regional Editor, Newsweek This insightful look into the Colombian insurgency will be valuable for scholars, policy analysts, and citizens who need to know about the next major battlefield. It's drugs, civil war, class struggle, and more U.S. intervention woven together into a very readable story. -Saul Landau, author of The Pre-Emptive Empire: A Guide to Bush's Kingdom and The Business of America: How Consumers Have Replaced Citizens and How We Can Reverse the Trend With verve and compassion, Dudley tells the riveting story of a political genocide that has cost Colombia thousands of lives. No one else has written this history so well and with so much first-hand access to its protagonists. It is a painful, complex, funny, andprovocative read, and goes to the heart of how modern Colombia really works. -Robin Kirk, Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch-Americas Division and author of More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America's War in Colombia Through honest, vivid, and scrupulous reporting, Dudley gives a superb history of the Patriotic Union in the mid-1980s, which continues to haunt the country's politics. His sensitive account is a significant contribution to understanding the Colombian enigma, and should be required reading for policymakers convinced they have all the answers to help produce an enduring peace. -Michael Shifter, vice president for policy at the Inter-American Dialogue Institute


See Also