Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 304
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9
978-0-7425-1859-9 • Hardback • March 2003 • $144.00 • (£111.00) - Currently out of stock. Copies will arrive soon.
Herbert Braun is associate professor of history at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
Part I: 1988
Chapter 1: Taking
Chapter 2: Adapting
Chapter 3: Staying
Chapter 4: Negotiating
Chapter 5: Terrorizing
Chapter 6: Dying
Chapter 7: Returning
Chapter 8: Living
Part II: 1994
Chapter 9: Silencing
Part III: 2002
Chapter 10: Drinking
Our Guerrillas, Our Sidewalks offers considerable insight into, and analysis of, contemporary Latin American history, touching upon politics, violence, and guerrilla activity. The author has an easy writing style: crisp, fast-paced, and designed to hold your attention to the very end.
— Michael J. LaRosa, Rhodes College; Journal Of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs
An intense meditation on the tortured history of a Colombia marked by a decades-long bloodletting known as La Violencia. Narrated by the participants themselves, the story of the abduction masterfully intertwines the human drama with the historical context within which it unfolded.
— Washington Report On The Hemisphere
Herbert 'Tico' Braun demonstrates the intense ambivalence permeating the Columbian conflict in the updated and expanded edition in his 1994 book, Our Guerillas, Our Sidewalks. It chronicles the 1988 kidnapping by the Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) of his brother-in-law, Jake Gambini, a Texas-born oilman and longtime resident of Columbia. . . . Braun writes in a journal-entry form, recording his raw feelings and cogent observations, and includes clippings from the press and other sources.
— W. John Green, Council on Hemisperic Affairs; Latin American Research Review
Tico Braun's brother-in-law Jake is kidnapped and it is Braun's job to negotiate his freedom. His book about it is much more than a tense thriller. Rich, wise, sharp-eyed, and human, it's the diary of a nightmare journey taken by Jake, his family, and Braun's beloved Colombia.
— Tina Rosenberg, author of Children of Cain: Violence and the Violent in Latin America
Cleverly intertwining the personal account of a kidnapping with a history of the struggle for social reform, this book gives valuable insight into the present political situation. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Library Journal
A profoundly moving and unrelentingly honest account of one very thoughtful individual's attempt to grapple with the meaning of violence and change in contemporary Colombian society. It is precisely the loss of political innocence that lends this book its moral force. Braun's misgivings and crisis of political belief are emblematic of many intellectuals on the left, but few would have the courage to expose these in such detail and honesty for public consumption. His readers are the richer for it. (Previous Edition Praise)
— The Americas: A Quarterly Review of Latin American History
A grim and compelling account of the 1988 kidnapping of Texas-born oilman and longtime Colombia resident Jake Gambini by Marxist guerrillas. . . . The fast-paced narrative . . . has the makings of a movie script worthy of Alfred Hitchcock. . . . This memorable book takes the reader inside the Colombian revolutionary movements and politics, examines the psychology of conflict resolution, and shines with human perseverance and courage in the face of despair and adversity. Braun provides an intimate examination of a phenomenon rarely captured in print . . . but which remains very much part of the Latin American landscape. (Previous Edition Praise)
— Foreign Affairs