Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973-1988 Book

When a friend gives you a 500+ page book, you have two options: end your friendship immediately by saying "no, thanks" or take their word that it's worth your time and start reading.

Obviously, I chose the second option and I am glad I did. This book was very different from other books on the Pinochet years that I have read, which focused on the run-up to the coup and the coup itself, or on the human rights violations committed by the regime in the 1970s.

This book (part two of a three-part series) brings the reader into the zeitgeist of what it was like to live in Chile during the years 1973-1988. I know, because I lived there from 1984-1986. Living under a military dictatorship is a nerve-wracking, tension-filled existence that somehow manages at the same time to be incredibly boring and dull. The genius of the author is that he captures this dichotomy by examining how the collective memory of Chileans persisted despite extraordinary efforts of the government to erase and obscure its human rights violations. The book details how political parties were done away with, freedom of the press was thwarted and facts were questioned by the regime, causing many citizens to believe they were in danger from armed marxists when in reality there was never any real threat.

I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the ways in which democracies can be subverted. So many echoes of what is happening in the US right now under Trump. Before they knew it, Chileans in 1973 lost their democratically elected government and endured 17 years of dictatorship, torture and repression in the name of "saving" them from Communism. Who are we being told to be afraid of today??