The latest series of coups d'état in Latin America has left an enduring impact on the region's contemporary landscape. This book employs a comparative methodology that illuminates distinct national contexts, scrutinizing the fundamental causal factors that precipitated coups in Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Honduras, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador, and Guatemala. The essays answer the following questions: when was a given transfer of power defined as a coup d'état? What were the objectives in overthrowing an existing regime? What role did the US government play, as well as local political actors? What were the various options considered by different sectors within each country? What kinds of resistance did the coups face? What were their sources of support? By comprehensively exploring these questions across each national case, this book dismantles the belief that the coups can be grouped into a single category, and marks the culmination of an era in the subcontinent.

A welcome assessment of the various Latin American military coups. In critical dialogue with the available interpretations of each case, these excellent studies take their cue from substantive common questions to illuminate both the singularities of each scenario and the broad lines that connected the multifaceted regimes of the late twentieth century.

Lila Caimari - CONICET (Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas), Argentina