1980s
20th century
A01=Beatriz Manz
anthropologists
Author_Beatriz Manz
Category=NHK
Category=NHW
central america
cultural history
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
ethnography
guatemala
guatemalan civil war
guerrillas
historians
historical perspective
history of violence
illustrated
indigenous histories
land disputes
latin american history
maps
maya peasants
mayan highlands
mexico
nonfiction
paramilitary forces
political conflict
rainforests
refugees
repression
santa maria tzeja
social sciences
textbooks
united states
village life
war
Product details
- ISBN 9780520246751
- Weight: 454g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 10 Aug 2005
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Paradise in Ashes is a deeply engaged and moving account of the violence and repression that defined the murderous Guatemalan civil war of the 1980s. In this compelling book, Beatriz Manz--an anthropologist who spent over two decades studying the Mayan highlands and remote rain forests of Guatemala--tells the story of the village of Santa Maria Tzeja, near the border with Mexico. Manz writes eloquently about Guatemala's tortured history and shows how the story of this village--its birth, destruction, and rebirth--embodies the forces and conflicts that define the country today. Drawing on interviews with peasants, community leaders, guerrillas, and paramilitary forces, Manz creates a richly detailed political portrait of Santa Maria Tzeja, where highland Maya peasants seeking land settled in the 1970s. Manz describes these villagers' plight as their isolated, lush, but deceptive paradise became one of the centers of the war convulsing the entire country.
After their village was viciously sacked in 1982, desperate survivors fled into the surrounding rain forest and eventually to Mexico, and some even further, to the United States, while others stayed behind and fell into the military's hands. With great insight and compassion, Manz follows their flight and eventual return to Santa Maria Tzeja, where they sought to rebuild their village and their lives.
Beatriz Manz, born in Chile, is Professor of Geography and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the author of Refugees of a Hidden War: The Aftermath of Counterinsurgency in Guatemala (1988).
