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The Memory Box of Pinochet's Chile #2
Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet's Chile, 1973-1988
Battling for Hearts and Minds is the story of the dramatic struggle to define collective memory in Chile during the violent, repressive dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, from the 1973 military coup in which he seized power through his defeat in a 1988 plebiscite. Steve J. Stern provides a riveting narration of Chile’s political history during this period. At the same time, he analyzes Chileans’ conflicting interpretations of events as they unfolded. Drawing on testimonios, archives, Truth Commission documents, radio addresses, memoirs, and written and oral histories, Stern identifies four distinct perspectives on life and events under the dictatorship. He describes how some Chileans viewed the regime as salvation from ruin by Leftists (the narrative favored by Pinochet’s junta), some as a wound repeatedly reopened by the state, others as an experience of persecution and awakening, and still others as a closed book, a past to be buried and forgotten. In the 1970s, Chilean dissidents were lonely “voices in the wilderness” insisting that state terror and its victims be recognized and remembered. By the 1980s, the dissent had spread, catalyzing a mass movement of individuals who revived public dialogue by taking to the streets, creating alternative media, and demanding democracy and human rights. Despite long odds and discouraging defeats, people of conscience—victims of the dictatorship, priests, youth, women, workers, and others—overcame fear and succeeded in creating truthful public memories of state atrocities. Recounting both their efforts and those of the regime’s supporters to win the battle for Chileans’ hearts and minds, Stern shows how profoundly the struggle to create memories, to tell history, matters.
Battling for Hearts and Minds is the second volume in the trilogy The Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile. The third book will examine Chileans’ efforts to achieve democracy while reckoning with Pinochet’s legacy.
Battling for Hearts and Minds is the second volume in the trilogy The Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile. The third book will examine Chileans’ efforts to achieve democracy while reckoning with Pinochet’s legacy.
576 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
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183 people want to read
About the author
Steve J. Stern
18 books9 followersSteve J. Stern is the Alberto Flores Galindo Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He is the author of books including Reckoning with Pinochet: The Memory Question in Democratic Chile, 1989-2006, Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet’s Chile, 1973–1988, winner of the Bolton-Johnson Prize (the Conference on Latin American History), and Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
November 4, 2013
Excelente analisis.
December 7, 2025
"In the new Chile, dementia is accuracy."
Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet’s Chile, 1973-1988 is the second installment in Steve J. Stern’s tripartite exploration of the contested terrain of memory and “the meaning of collective trauma” following the overthrow of Salvador Allende and the subsequent violence of the Pinochet regime. Stern, Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, argues that Pinochet’s rule—marked by repression, political arrests, torture, and the suppression of dissent—“generated a contentious memory question in Chilean life.” The dictatorship sought to impose a dominant narrative that framed the Left as a destabilizing threat and portrayed the military’s seizure of power as an act of national salvation. Violence, in this narrative, was recast as a necessary defense against the violence that Pinochet’s supporters claimed would have accompanied continued leftist governance.
Against this authoritarian reinterpretation of events, Stern highlights the critical role of memory as both a political and moral force. Remembering the regime’s abuses became essential to sustaining opposition and cultivating solidarity among Chileans. By the early 1980s, large segments of society—including many who had once supported or tolerated the dictatorship—were united by a “culture of fear” that spurred a profound moral awakening. This shifting consciousness found expression in grassroots activism, human-rights organizing, and widespread protest. Ultimately, these collective efforts contributed to the 1988 plebiscite, whose outcome undermined the junta’s authority and paved the way for Chile’s transition to democracy.
Despite its occasional long-windedness and repetitiveness, Battling for Hearts and Minds offers a distinctive narrative framework that illuminates Chileans’ struggles to construct meaning under authoritarianism. Stern’s work underscores the political power of media and information control, as well as the indispensable role that memory, persistence, and collective action played in forging an effective opposition to state violence as a mode of governance.
Battling for Hearts and Minds: Memory Struggles in Pinochet’s Chile, 1973-1988 is the second installment in Steve J. Stern’s tripartite exploration of the contested terrain of memory and “the meaning of collective trauma” following the overthrow of Salvador Allende and the subsequent violence of the Pinochet regime. Stern, Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, argues that Pinochet’s rule—marked by repression, political arrests, torture, and the suppression of dissent—“generated a contentious memory question in Chilean life.” The dictatorship sought to impose a dominant narrative that framed the Left as a destabilizing threat and portrayed the military’s seizure of power as an act of national salvation. Violence, in this narrative, was recast as a necessary defense against the violence that Pinochet’s supporters claimed would have accompanied continued leftist governance.
Against this authoritarian reinterpretation of events, Stern highlights the critical role of memory as both a political and moral force. Remembering the regime’s abuses became essential to sustaining opposition and cultivating solidarity among Chileans. By the early 1980s, large segments of society—including many who had once supported or tolerated the dictatorship—were united by a “culture of fear” that spurred a profound moral awakening. This shifting consciousness found expression in grassroots activism, human-rights organizing, and widespread protest. Ultimately, these collective efforts contributed to the 1988 plebiscite, whose outcome undermined the junta’s authority and paved the way for Chile’s transition to democracy.
Despite its occasional long-windedness and repetitiveness, Battling for Hearts and Minds offers a distinctive narrative framework that illuminates Chileans’ struggles to construct meaning under authoritarianism. Stern’s work underscores the political power of media and information control, as well as the indispensable role that memory, persistence, and collective action played in forging an effective opposition to state violence as a mode of governance.
May 1, 2019
When a friend gives you a 500+ page book, you have two options: end your friendship immediately by saying "no, thanks" or take their word that it's worth your time and start reading.
Obviously, I chose the second option and I am glad I did. This book was very different from other books on the Pinochet years that I have read, which focused on the run-up to the coup and the coup itself, or on the human rights violations committed by the regime in the 1970s.
This book (part two of a three-part series) brings the reader into the zeitgeist of what it was like to live in Chile during the years 1973-1988. I know, because I lived there from 1984-1986. Living under a military dictatorship is a nerve-wracking, tension-filled existence that somehow manages at the same time to be incredibly boring and dull. The genius of the author is that he captures this dichotomy by examining how the collective memory of Chileans persisted despite extraordinary efforts of the government to erase and obscure its human rights violations. The book details how political parties were done away with, freedom of the press was thwarted and facts were questioned by the regime, causing many citizens to believe they were in danger from armed marxists when in reality there was never any real threat.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the ways in which democracies can be subverted. So many echoes of what is happening in the US right now under Trump. Before they knew it, Chileans in 1973 lost their democratically elected government and endured 17 years of dictatorship, torture and repression in the name of "saving" them from Communism. Who are we being told to be afraid of today??
Obviously, I chose the second option and I am glad I did. This book was very different from other books on the Pinochet years that I have read, which focused on the run-up to the coup and the coup itself, or on the human rights violations committed by the regime in the 1970s.
This book (part two of a three-part series) brings the reader into the zeitgeist of what it was like to live in Chile during the years 1973-1988. I know, because I lived there from 1984-1986. Living under a military dictatorship is a nerve-wracking, tension-filled existence that somehow manages at the same time to be incredibly boring and dull. The genius of the author is that he captures this dichotomy by examining how the collective memory of Chileans persisted despite extraordinary efforts of the government to erase and obscure its human rights violations. The book details how political parties were done away with, freedom of the press was thwarted and facts were questioned by the regime, causing many citizens to believe they were in danger from armed marxists when in reality there was never any real threat.
I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the ways in which democracies can be subverted. So many echoes of what is happening in the US right now under Trump. Before they knew it, Chileans in 1973 lost their democratically elected government and endured 17 years of dictatorship, torture and repression in the name of "saving" them from Communism. Who are we being told to be afraid of today??
December 13, 2023
Un must-read sobre la construcción de la memoria en Chile, asignado en el ramo Humanitarismo y Derechos Humanos
February 17, 2025
Easy book to understand historical memory and its use by various groups in Chile during the Pinochet dictatorship. Must read!
May 11, 2008
i am not even close to finishing this book yet so i guess i´m not sure what i can say ...steve however is the master of the universe with this whole collective memory-history thing though so i´m sure it will be good ...i read the 1st book in the trilogy already and was really looking to pick this up so i was really happy to find it when i went to madison in february to visit a friend who still lives there ...the only downside is that it´s heavy and i have to carry it around in my backpack ...
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews