Unfinished Conquest: The Guatemalan Tragedy

by Victor Perera

Book Overview

Spanning the years of civil war in Guatemala, Unfinished Conquest portrays an embattled country facing the third cycle of a conquest that began when the conquistadors arrived in the sixteenth century. As personal narrative weaves with reportage and oral testimony, we meet the victims, champions, and villains of a society torn apart by violence and injustice.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0520203496
• ISBN13: 9780520203495
• Release Date: November 1995
• Publisher: University of California Press
• Length: 297 Pages
• Weight: 1.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

An unbiased history

A good history of Guatemala's civil war that is not boring to read. While the viewpoint seems to be that the communist rebels had a just cause, they are given as much blame for the violence that ensued.

Excellent Insight into a suffering country

The terrible situation that happened to this Central America nation is very well documented in this book.The author, Mr Perera, writes with a lot of insight and first hand knowledge since he lived in Guatemala for several years.The book is full with interviews the author did with local people such as soldiers,politicians,ladinos,mayas and just the average person in the street.The author is not afraid to let the reader see what is the real situation in Guatemala and is not afraid to point fingers to the real culprits.This book is a very good work that identifies the problems of not only the mayans as a people but also the problems and corruption that politicians have brought on its own people.Great work!

Scholarly, lyrical, captivating . . . a treasure!

This wide-ranging book, written beautifully and knowledgeably, is a pleasure to read and a must for anyone interested in Guatemalan (or Central American) history and/or Mayan culture. Mr. Perera does not take particular pains to hide his sympathies (clearly pro-environmental protection, pro-indigenous people's rights) but the intelligence of his writing and the mastery and breadth of the subject matter make this the most articulate, beautiful, informative statement of those views I've read. What a disappointment to learn that this powerful voice was silenced not long after this book by a stroke and his subsequent death. Read this book!

I BELIEVE IN DIVINE JUSTICE......

AND I BELIEVE That everything that this "people" have done to the poor of the world, is going to come back at them to bite them right in their behind!."THIRD WORLD COUNTRY" STANDS FOR MIND, BODY AND SPIRIT.

One of the best on this topic.......

Victor Perera is a native guatemalan who took the better part of 6 years to write this book. This book is chock full of great information gathered from hundreds of interviews. Perera doesn't waste time trying to interpret the events he writes about, instead he let's the participants and witnesses speak for themselves. He interviews everybody for this book from wealthy landowners, government officials, military personel, catholic and evangelical clergy and mostly the mayan people who have suffered from 30 years of civil war. He then fills in the cracks with historical background. His writing is very precise and specific, his descriptions paint a very vivid picture of the oppression and genocide that continues to take place.The book begins with his visits to the garbage dump slums of guatemala city and proceeds to other hot spots of violence. The core of the book is those chapters about the ixil triangle area where as many as one third of the local mayan population was killed, disappeared or forced to flee the country. ..............socks