Steve Striffler’s Solidarity: Latin America and the US Left in the Era of Human Rights examines the multiple responses to US interventions, occupations, and wars in Latin America during the late nineteenth and most of the twentieth century. Striffler’s key intervention is a constant and needed reminder that US violence, corruption, and deceit in Latin America did not go unnoticed and, in fact, prompted decades of activism.
Striffler’s historical reach begins with the late nineteenth century and ends with the wars in Central America, the rise of NAFTA, and the Zapatista Movement. There is a lot to cover here and as a result, it reads more like a survey than an in-depth study of a particular event, movement, or cause. Moreover, by focusing on the US Left, which tends to focus on white leftists, and the politics of solidarity with Latin America and Latin Americans, there is a tendency to...
