Between Legitimacy and Violence: A History of Colombia, 1875-2002

by Marco Palacios, Richard Stoller (Translator)

Between Legitimacy and Violence is an authoritative, sweeping history of Colombia’s “long twentieth century,” from the tumultuous civil wars of the late nineteenth century to the drug wars of the late twentieth. Marco Palacios, a leading Latin American historian, skillfully blends political, economic, social, and cultural history. In an expansive chronological narrative full of vivid detail, he explains Colombia’s political history, discussing key leaders, laws, parties, and ideologies; corruption and inefficiency; and the paradoxical nature of government institutions, which, while stable and enduring, are unable to prevent frequent and extreme outbursts of violence. Palacios traces the trajectory of the economy, addressing agriculture (particularly the economic significance of coffee), the development of a communication and transportation infrastructure, industrialization, and labor struggles. Palacios also gives extensive attention to persistent social inequalities, the role of the Catholic Church, demographic shifts such as urbanization and emigration, and Colombia’s relationship with the United States. Offering a comparative perspective, he frequently contrasts Colombia with other Latin American nations. Throughout, Palacios offers a helpful interpretive framework, connecting developments with their causes and consequences. By thoroughly illuminating Colombia’s past, Between Legitimacy and Violence sheds much-needed light on the country’s violent present.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics

320 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

Historiador y abogado Bogotano nacido el 13 de junio de 1944. Se graduó en leyes de la Universidad de Colombia y luego recibió su primer posgrado del Colegio de México en 1970 al concluir sus estudios sobre Asia. Posteriormente recibió su Doctorado en Filosofía de la Universidad de Oxford en Inglaterra.

Al concluir sus estudios en México, se vinculó al Centro de Investigaciones para el Desarrollo, CID, de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, donde trabajó como investigador durante un periodo de dos años. Su carrera académica continuó como conferencista y ponente en distintos congresos especializados realizados en diversos países como Venezuela, Argentina, México, Cuba, Costa Rica, Francia, España y Gran Bretaña.

En agosto de 1984, Marco Palacios fue nombrado rector de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Anteriormente a su nombramiento, había sido miembro del consejo de acreditación de ciencias sociales y humanidades de la misma. Ocupó el cargo de rector hasta julio de 1988. Durante su tiempo a cargo de la Universidad, Marco Palacios implementó una serie de políticas encaminadas a cerrar las viviendas estudiantiles de la universidad, pues argumentaba que muchas de estas estaban recibiendo un uso inadecuado. Igualmente, reformó el sistema de cafeterías de la universidad con el propósito de administrar mas eficientemente los recursos estatales.

En el año 2003 Marco Palacios fue nombrado nuevamente rector de la Universidad Nacional para el periodo 2003-2006. Desde entonces, su política se encaminó a brindarle más autonomía a la Universidad y hacer más eficiente su manejo. Poco después de asumir el cargo propuso la reducción del periodo de estudios a cuatro años académicos.

Reviews

[Uuu Ooo Bbb · Rating 2 out of 5]

The main value of this book is that - as far as I can tell - it's the only comprehensive book on the 20th-century history of Colombia available in English. It covers well the international relations, development of the economy, certain areas of internal politics such as education policy, the relationship between the state and the catholic church, the two main parties, Liberal and Conservative, their domination over electoral politics and government.
It is largely a descriptive history, there is very little data of any kind. It is overly focused on the electoral politics, the conflict between two parties and sectarian fights inside each of them. Where the key events happen outside of the electoral system, the author mostly fails to describe let alone analyse them.
Colombian economy is mostly agrarian and the colonisation of uninhabited parts of the country and the struggle over land determine it's history heavily. The colonisation is mentioned several times but barely explained. The failure to describe the violent struggle is the largest fault of the book.
This is the most pronounced in the chapter on La Violencia, the weakest part of the book. La Violencia was a ten year period of generalised violence which started in with the assassination of Liberal presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitan in 1948 and took lives of 200,000 Colombians. The chapter is structured so that the political event of the period are described separately to the actual "violence". The latter is very lacking. The author fails to actually mention the death toll and uses the lack of reliable sources as an excuse. The separation allows him to describe Rojas military coup in 1953 as largely peaceful. He mentioned that towards the end of the period the sectarian violence between Conservatives and Liberals was transformed and communist guerrillas emerged from it. He fails to explain how and why that happened. At one point he mentions the government resorting to informal military squad - which seems to point to emergence of paramilitaries in this period - and describes this as 'effective strategy.'
Following chapters continue this failure to accurately describe forms of political violence, the actors who were using them and their purpose. When talking about the landless peasant movement, the author says that it was defeated by Conservative violence and killing of activists, and in the following sentence says that sectarianism of the communist party was as big a reason. The subchapter on the resurgence of guerillas in the final chapter on the 1990s says that the level of violence is almost equal to that during La Violencia. It doesn't explain the material reasons behind the continuing support for the guerillas among sectors of Colombian society, instead resorting to cliches like 'professionalisation' and 'lifestyle.' This conflict has two sides, the guerillas, and the paramilitaries, and yet the book barely mentions the paramilitaries, and the fact that they are responsible for the majority of the killings is found nowhere. Instead, we get a chapter called 'The Collapse' filled with platitudes such as the erosion of family values and fascination with drugs and television.

[Dulcinea · Rating 2 out of 5]

Largely political and heavy on statistics which made it difficult to read but many interesting and thought provoking points. The last chapter was by far the most interesting and a much better read but it took some real work to get through the book to reach that chapter.
I was hoping for more social history than financial and economic. Would be careful to recommend.

[Jack · Rating 2 out of 5]

not the most titillating book I've ever had to read for a class but not terrible either

[Cameron Cohen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good history but can very vague at times and not dive into the detail that the reader would want. I only recommend to those looking for more reading material on Colombian history.

[Sam · Rating 3 out of 5]

An authoritative version of Colombian history filled with facts, dates and names. Not much of a narrative however. I bore through agrarian statistics from the early 1900 in the hopes that this might transition to today's issues, but if the transition was there I missed it. Trustworthy primer of modern Colombian history, although I would have never gotten through it if I had access to English language bookstores on my vacation.

[Reeder82 · Rating 1 out of 5]

A slow moving political history of Colombia with a smattering of its Social history. Sadly, being apolitical I did not enjoy this book much, in fact I stopped at page 172. However, from Panama seceding from Colombia due to the political inaction to Brazil’s ‘invisible hand’ propelling and establishing Colombia’s coffee industry, there was some great history at times. Overall, it was ‘A’ history of Colombia, not ‘THE’ history of Colombia.