1. See Paul Cammack, “Resurgent Democracy: Threat and Promise,” New Left Review, no. 157 (May-June 1986):121–28.

2. Factual mistakes abound, but I will cite only a few empirical errors. The chapter on Mexico makes no mention of the presidency of Abelardo Rodríguez during the “Maximato.” There never was a “Feminist Peronist party” in Argentina, as the authors state (p. 152). In Uruguay, the Consejo Nacional de Gobierno, the plural executive that replaced the presidency, was installed in 1952, not in 1954. The Tupamaros were never part of the Frente Izquierda de Liberación (FIDEL), an umbrella organization of the Communist party. In Brazil, Getulio Vargas's opposition was called the União Democrática Nacional (UDN), not the “União Democrática Brasileira” (UDB). The military coup that overthrew President João Goulart occurred on 31 March 1964, not on 9 April (p. 262). The Partido da Frente Liberal (PFL) did not gain control of Congress in the 1986 election. Congress was dominated by a coalition of parties made up of the PFL, the Partido Democrático Social (PDS), and the right-wing faction of the Partido do Movimento Democrático Brasileiro (PMDB), the “Centrão.”

3. As cited in Hannah Arendt, On Revolution (New York: Penguin, 1990), 56.