Synopses & Reviews
In 1952 Bolivia was transformed by revolution. With the army destroyed from only a few days of fighting, workers and peasants took up arms to claim the country as their own. Overnight, the electorate expanded five-fold. Industries were turned over to worker organizations to manage, and land was distributed to peasant communities. Education became universal and free for the first time in the country's history.
This volume, the result of a conference organized by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies of Harvard University and the Institute for Latin American Studies at the University of London, presents new interpretations of the causes of the events of 1952 and compares them to the great social transformations that occurred in France, Mexico, Russia, China, and Cuba. It also considers the consequences of the revolution by examining the political, social, and economic development of the country, as well as adding important insights to the analysis of revolution and the understanding of this fascinating Andean country.
Review
Proclaiming Revolution is an important contribution--the first book of its kind to approach the implications and consequences of the 1952 revolution in comparison with other Latin American revolutions of similar magnitude...[It] permits us to see the possibility of creating a society that is more humane, reconstructing diverse sociocultural identities in order to reinvent the Bolivian nation "sin mayziscúlas"--the plurimulti "nation" and not "Nation." Franco Gamboa Rocabado
Synopsis
The fiftieth anniversary of the 1952 Revolution in Bolivia offered an opportunity to explore contrasting visions about change in this often overlooked country from a comparative perspective. Blending the approaches of history and the social sciences, the chapters in this volume examine both implicitly and explicitly the extent to which the process opened by the uprising of April 1952 is comparable to the great radical transformations that occurred elsewhere during the twentieth century. The question of historical memory, the origins of the revolution in the political economy and culture of the towns, mines and countryside, and the extent to which the political process after 1952 shaped new interpretations of the country's place in the world are all analysed by leading scholars from Bolivia, the USA and the UK. Full and critical attention is given to the consequences of the revolution over fifty years, with assessments of the parties, structures and policies shaping economic, political and social conditions at the start of the twenty-first century.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [381]-416) and index.
About the Author
Merilee S. Grindle is Edward S. Mason Professor of International Development and Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies at Harvard University.Pilar Domingo is Lecturer in Politics, Queen Mary College, University of London.
Queen Mary College, University of London
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Contributors
List of Tables
List of Figures
List of Acronyms
INTRODUCTION
1.1952 and All That: The Bolivian Revolution in Comparative Perspective
Merilee S. Grindle
PART 1: HOW REVOLUTIONARY THE REVOLUTION?
2. The Bolivian National Revolution: A Comparison
Laurence Whitehead
3. The Domestic Dynamics of the Mexican and Bolivian Revolutions
Alan Knight
4. Braked but not Broken: The United States and Revolutionaries in Mexico and Bolivia
Ken Lehman
PART 2: REVOLUTIONARY VISIONS AND ACTORS
5. Revolutionary Memory in Bolivia: Anticolonial and National Projects from 1781 to 1952
Sinclair Thomson
6.The Origins of the Bolivian Revolution in the Twentieth Century: Some Reflections
James Dunkerley
7. Revisiting the Rural Roots of the Revolution
Laura Gotkowitz
8. Capturing Indian Bodies, Hearths and Minds: 'El Hogar Campesino' and Rural School Reform in Bolivia, 1920s-1940s
Brooke Larson
PART 3: REVOLUTIONARY CONSEQUENCES
9. The National Revolution and its Legacy
Juan Antonio Morales
10. Social Change in Bolivia since 1952
Herbert S. Klein
11. A Comparative Perspective on Education Reforms in Bolivia: 1950-2000
Manuel E. Contreras
PART 4: UNFINISHED AGENDAS AND NEW INITIATIVES
12. Political Parties Since 1964: The Construction of Bolivia's Multiparty System
Eduardo Gamarra
13.Shadowing the Past? Policy Reform in Bolivia, 1985-2002
Merilee S. Grindle
14. The Offspring of 1952: Poverty, Exclusion and the Promise of Popular Participation
George Gray Molina
PART 5: CONCLUSION
15. Revolution and the Unfinished Business of Nation- and State- Building
Pilar Domingo
Bibliography