Rigoberta Menchu and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans: New Foreword by Elizabeth Burgos / Edition 1

by David Stoll

Overview

Rigoberta Menchú is a living legend, a young woman who said that her odyssey from a Mayan Indian village to revolutionary exile was "the story of all poor Guatemalans." By turning herself into an everywoman, she became a powerful symbol for 500 years of indigenous resistance to colonialism. Her testimony, I, Rigoberta Menchú, denounced atrocities by the Guatemalan army and propelled her to the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize. But her story was not the eyewitness account that she claimed. In this hotly debated book, key points of which have been corroborated by the New York Times, David Stoll compares a cult text with local testimony from Rigoberta Menchú's hometown. His reconstruction of her story goes to the heart of debates over political correctness and identity politics and provides a dramatic illustration of the rebirth of the sacred in the postmodern academy.

This expanded edition includes a new foreword from Elizabeth Burgos, the editor of I, Rigoberta Menchú, as well as a new afterword from Stoll, who discusses Rigoberta Menchú's recent bid for the Guatemalan presidency and addresses the many controversies and debates that have arisen since the book was first published.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813343969
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	12/25/2007
Edition description:	REV
Pages:	388
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.80(h) x 1.00(d)
Lexile:	1270L (what's this?)

About the Author

David Stoll teaches anthropology at Middlebury College. His other books include Is Latin America Turning Protestant? and Between Two Armies in the Ixil Towns of Guatemala.

Table of Contents

The Story of All Poor Guatemalans; Vincente Mench And His Village; Uspantn as an Agricultural Frontier; The Struggle for Chimel; Popular Revolutionary War; Revolutionary Justice Comes to Uspantn; The Death of Petrocinio; The Massacre at the Spanish Embassy; Vicente Mench and the Committee for the Campesino Unity; Vicente Mench and the Guerrilla Army of the Poor; The Death of Juana Tum and the Destruction of Chimel; The Gulf Between Guerrilla Strategy and Popular Consciousness; The Death Squads in Uspantn; Vincentes Daughter and the Reinvention of Chimel; Where was Rigoberta?; Rigoberta Joins the Revolutionary Movement; The Construction of; I, Rigoberta Mench; Rigobertas Secret; The Campaign for the Nobel; The Lonely Life of a Nobel Laureate; Rigoberta and Redemption; The New Chimel; Rigoberta Leaves the Guerrilla Movement; Epitaph for an Eyewitness Account

Editorial Reviews

"More than an expose or refutation, Stoll's account presents an increasingly complex — and I think ultimately sympathetic — portrait of an exceptional, eloquent individual caught up in personal and historical tragedies doing her best to maintain her integrity. The strength of this book lies not in its refutation of Rigoberta Menchúu's story but in its inquiry into what the instant worldwide appeal of her autobiography tells us about how we choose to understand recent Guatemalan history, Guatemalan society, and more generally, revolutionary struggle and authenticity in the voice of others." John Watanabe, Darmouth College

"The rule of all sociological studies should be a simple one: no icons. Not Karl Marx; not Max Weber (sigh); not Michel Foucault; not anyone. Rigoberta Menchú should not be an exception. This book is going to explode over Guatemalan and Latin American Studies." Timothy Wickham-Crowley, Georgetown University

From the Publisher