It is a popular assumption that wars (at least international ones) are rare in Latin America and that professional soldiers (at least officers) spend more time playing at politics than they do making war. This solid companion volume to Latin America’s Wars: The Age of the Caudillos, 1791–1899 makes two major points convincingly. First, Scheina asserts, in the past century, armed conflict was principally a domestic phenomenon: interclass and intraclass struggles, interventions, ideological warfare, terrorism, narcowar, guerrilla, and the like. Second, throughout the twentieth century, military professionals across the region spent as much or more time struggling with varied enemies within than they did actually administering their countries or defending them against their neighbors. Well before the so-called postmodern era, peace and war, and relations between civil and military sectors of society, were miscible in Latin America. Like the caudillos before them, professional soldiers would have both internal and external...
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