Ranquil: Rural Rebellion, Political Violence, and Historical Memory in Chile.

• Author: Mcsherry, J. Patrice

Klubock, Thomas Miller. Ranquil: Rural Rebellion, Political Violence, and Historical Memory in Chile. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2022.

Thomas Klubock has amassed a rich store of information about the injustices faced by Chilean campesinos in the years preceding the historic Ranquil rebellion of 1934 and the event itself. Thick with description and detail derived from hitherto unused judicial archives and unknown documents, the book adds depth to our understanding of peasant struggles in the south of Chile and the context surrounding the 1934 rebellion. Ranquil was the largest rural revolt in Chile's history. The author fleshes out the roles of the Sindicato Agricola Lonquimay, the Democratic Party and the Chilean Communist Party and wealthy landowning families such as the Puelmas and Bunsters, as well as key peasant leaders such as Juan Segundo Leiva Tapia. Klubock shows that many of the peasants who participated in the rebellion were "disappeared" and murdered, previewing the savage repression to come forty years later under the Pinochet dictatorship.

The book leads with an excellent...