Rethinking the 30,000

About the Book

A serious and essential investigation for readers that take interest in the recent past, both specialists and those looking for answers that are sometimes taken for granted.

Excerpt

The 1970s continue to be a minefield where debates around political violence and the number of the disappeared recur time and time again: is it possible to escape the labyrinth without feeding the taboos that tend to resurface in the worst possible ways? With a rigorous and highly sensitive approach, Crenzel retraces the ways in which the families of the disappeared, human-rights organizations, exiles, and armed groups constructed an understanding about the system of disappearance. Analyzing their perspectives—often in tension with one another—about who was responsible for the disappearances, where the victims were held, the strategies used to count them and their ultimate fates, he offers possible answers to the question: what did Argentine society know about clandestine repression? This indispensable book ventures to tell us that to rethink the 30,000 entails “recounting” them again in more than one sense: to explain where the number comes from and, more importantly, to confront the most uncomfortable questions with precise arguments.