Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction: How Unpopular Was the Argentine Dictatorship? -- 1. Dictatorship, Media, and Message -- 2. "A Correct, Hermeneutic Reading": Fantasies of a Constitutional Coup and the Promotion of Indigenous Rights -- 3. The Frank War, the Fabrication of an Ongoing Menace, and the Jews -- 4. Democracy and the (Re)Shaping of Human Rights Politics -- 5. Finding a Cynical Center -- Epilogue: Saving Jorge Omar Merengo -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z.

Under violent military dictatorship, Operation Condor and the Dirty War scarred Argentina from the mid-1970s to the early 1980s, leaving behind a legacy of repression, state terror, and political murder. Even today, the now-democratic Argentine government attempts to repair the damage of these atrocities by making human rights a policy priority. But what about the other Dirty War, during which Argentine civilians--including indigenous populations--and foreign powers ignored and even abetted the state's vicious crimes against humanity? In this groundbreaking new work, David Sheinin draws on previously classified Argentine government documents, human rights lawsuits, and archived propaganda to illustrate the military-constructed fantasy of bloodshed as a public defense of human rights. Exploring the reactions of civilians and the international community to the daily carnage, Sheinin unearths how compliance with the dictatorship perpetuated the violence that defined a nation. This new approach to the history of human rights in Argentina will change how we understand dictatorship, democracy, and state terror.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.