Becoming the Tupamaros: Solidarity and Transnational Revolutionaries in Uruguay and the United States

by Lindsey Blake Churchill

In Becoming the Tupamaros , Lindsey Churchill explores an alternative narrative of US-Latin American relations by challenging long-held assumptions about the nature of revolutionary movements like the Uruguayan Tupamaros group. A violent and innovative organization, the Tupamaros demonstrated that Latin American guerrilla groups during the Cold War did more than take sides in a battle of Soviet and US ideologies. Rather, they digested information and techniques without discrimination, creating a homegrown and unique form of revolution.
Churchill examines the relationship between state repression and revolutionary resistance, the transnational connections between the Uruguayan Tupamaro revolutionaries and leftist groups in the US, and issues of gender and sexuality within these movements. Angela Davis and Eldridge Cleaver, for example, became symbols of resistance in both the United States and Uruguay. and while much of the Uruguayan left and many other revolutionary groups in Latin America focused on motherhood as inspiring women's politics, the Tupamaros disdained traditional constructions of femininity for female combatants. Ultimately, Becoming the Tupamaros revises our understanding of what makes a Movement truly revolutionary.

216 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

Reviews

[Jay Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author makes several interesting new connections. I particularly enjoyed the gendered elements the author researched. Good documentation and sources, and very readable. Certainly worthy for anyone interested in Latin American topics of this nature.

[Tim Mode · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not particularly good, though I did enjoy parts of it. Probably worth a read if you're interested in the Tupamaros, but I found it's author short-sighted and not particularly insightful fi not loose with her "facts".