The powerful, previously untold story of Puerto Rico's 1950 revolution and the long legacy of U.S. intervention on the island, praised by the New York Times as "could not be more timely."
In 1950, after more than fifty years of military occupation and colonial rule, the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico launched a dramatic but unsuccessful armed insurrection against the United States. Violence erupted across the island: Nationalist operatives attempted to assassinate President Harry Truman, fierce gun battles broke out in eight towns, and police stations and post offices were set ablaze. To quell this rebellion, the U.S. Army dispatched thousands of troops and bombed two Puerto Rican towns—the first time in history the U.S. government bombed its own citizens.
Nelson A. Denis masterfully recounts these dramatic events through the controversial life of Pedro Albizu Campos, the charismatic leader of the Nationalist Party. Albizu Campos, a lawyer, chemical engineer, and the first Puerto Rican graduate of Harvard Law School, was imprisoned for twenty-five years and ultimately died under mysterious circumstances. Denis vividly shows how Albizu Campos’s personal journey mirrors the broader narrative of Puerto Rico’s turbulent history under U.S. colonialism.
Based on extensive oral histories, personal interviews, eyewitness accounts, congressional testimonies, and newly declassified FBI documents, War Against All Puerto Ricans revives the memory of a forgotten revolution and provides critical historical context from the U.S. invasion of 1898 to today’s ongoing struggle for self-determination. Denis delivers an unflinching portrayal of gunfights, prison riots, political conspiracies, covert FBI and CIA operations, and the mass hysteria that defined this extraordinary period in Puerto Rican history.
Año: 2016 | Páginas: 400
Nation Book
