The Last Door

A History of Torture in Mexico's War against Subversives

Gladys I. McCormick (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

296 Seiten

2025
University of California Press (Verlag)
978-0-520-40418-2 (ISBN)

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As guerrilla groups sprouted up across Mexico in the early 1970s, the military and police routinely resorted to extreme acts of violence, including the systematic use of torture. In The Last Door, Gladys McCormick provides the most thorough account of how torture became a crucial and routine practice of the Mexican government’s war against subversives. Drawing from extensive oral history interviews and declassified government documents, McCormick describes experiences of arrest, torture, and detention in which forced disappearances became all too common and advocates for justice rallied around political prisoners. Torture was not always about extracting information; it was also about inflicting punishment on a faceless so-called enemy and instilling terror into advocates of social change. As McCormick argues, torture became a quotidian practice of state making in Mexico during the 1970s, leaving individuals and their families forever changed. The lack of repercussions for government officials notorious for employing torture, even in spite of a growing movement for truth and justice, has led to entrenched impunity that is endemic in Mexico as its contemporary security crisis continues.

Gladys I. McCormick is Associate Professor of History and Jay and Debe Moskowitz Endowed Chair in Mexico-US Relations at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University.

Contents

List of Figures and Maps
Acknowledgments
Organizations and Abbreviations

Introduction: The Open Secret
1. The Torture
2. The Making of the Subversive
3. The Torturers
4. The Making of the Political Prisoner
5. The Family
6. Three Prisoners
Conclusion: Torture in the Age of Impunity

Archives and Archival Abbreviations
Notes
List of Interviewees
Periodicals
Bibliography
Index

Erscheinungsdatum	11.04.2025
Reihe/Serie	Violence in Latin American History ; 9
Zusatzinfo	4 b-w figures, 3 maps
Verlagsort	Berkerley
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Gewicht	590 g
Themenwelt	Geschichte ► Allgemeine Geschichte ► Zeitgeschichte
	Geisteswissenschaften ► Geschichte ► Regional- / Ländergeschichte
	Sozialwissenschaften
ISBN-10	0-520-40418-1 / 0520404181
ISBN-13	978-0-520-40418-2 / 9780520404182
Zustand	Neuware