The Conquest of the Desert: Argentina's Indigenous Peoples and the Battle for History by Carolynn R. Larson (review)

Klubock argues that the Ránquil rebellion, when not forgotten by historians, has been categorized as a spontaneous uprising and not part of an organized collective movement. This “impedes a serious historical engagement with [peasants’] political consciousness,” he asserts (17– 18). Another of his arguments, which I found less persuasive, is that pardons and historical oblivion regarding massacres and repression by state security forces permitted “national reconciliation, functioning as a precondition for Chilean democracy and the legitimacy of the state” (21) as well as the development of a stable multiparty system. But while Chile was stable for long periods, stability is not the same as democracy. There is substantial literature on the longterm consequences of impunity that challenges his assertion that olvido is a necessary precondition for democracy. Similarly, the assumption that impunity and amnesia enhanced the legitimacy of the state is open to question. Chile’s unresolved conflicts over citizenship rights, political agency, and social demands left the country postdictatorship with high levels of inequality and frustration. The simmering, pentup demands for social justice and rights have continued to erupt, most recently during the 2019 estallido social, indicating that amnesties and olvido are not a longterm formula for stability and even less democracy. Each chapter covers an important aspect of the conflictive history in the south, as wealthy families usurped public lands and evicted campesinos via violence and fraud. The author’s exhaustive stepbystep account of the 1934 rebellion at times seems overly detailed; one wishes for more analysis of the significance of the events. But overall, the book is a major contribution to the literature and to scholarly understanding of underresearched social conflicts in Chile’s south.