With Beatriz Allende: A Revolutionary Life in Cold War Latin America, Tanya Harmer delivers a brilliant book that offers new and needed perspectives on the apex of the Latin American Cold War. This thorough biography of a prominent activist and key link within the multilayered regional Left expands far beyond the life of an individual and explores various Cold War patterns and dynamics. Owing to an extraordinary array of previously unconsulted primary sources, this book is a masterful example of how, by exploring one person's life and surroundings, researchers can scrutinize broader phenomena—in this case, “a particular revolutionary moment in Latin America's Cold War” (p. 16).
A major asset of the book is Harmer's methodical examination of how the Eduardo Frei administration (1964–70) influenced the Chilean Left. There is a regrettable trend in Cold War historiography to disregard Chile's Christian Democratic experience, which fostered a “climate of reform and...
