The Massacre at El Mozote (Classics of Reportage) - Softcover

Mark Danner

4.14

1,484 ratings by Goodreads

9781862077850: The Massacre at El Mozote (Classics of Reportage)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1862077851 ISBN 13: 9781862077850

Publisher: Granta Bks., 2005

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Reportage resists easy definition and comes in many forms - travel essay, narrative history, autobiography - but at its finest it reveals hidden truths about people and events that have shaped the world we know. This new series, hailed as 'a wonderful idea' by Don DeLillo, both restores to print and introduces for the first time some of the greatest works of the genre. In December 1981, the inhabitants of a small Salvadoran hamlet were systematically exterminated by the Atacatl Battalion, a U.S.-trained counter insurgency force. The Reagan administration, determined to preserve U.S. support for El Salvador's war against leftist guerrillas, downplayed reports of this massacre dismissing them as propaganda, and the American-funded war in El Salvador continued. But Mark Danner's subsequent reconstruction is a masterpiece of scrupulous investigative journalism and a testament to the forgotten victims of one of the worst massacres in Latin American history.

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From the Publisher:

"A compelling and terrifying tale [and] a powerful indictment of our national capacity to betray our own noblest ideals when we claim the right to decide the destiny of other countries."--Arthur Schlesinger, Jr.
"Mark Danner's account of what happened at El Mozote is a gripping story on three levels--that of the massacre, that of the official cover-up and that of the press. It is also a brilliant piece of writing."--Frances FitzGerald

From the Inside Flap:

In December 1981 soldiers of the Salvadoran Army's select, American-trained Atlacatl Battalion entered the village of El Mozote, where they murdered hundreds of men, women, and children, often by decapitation. Although reports of the massacre -- and photographs of its victims -- appeared in the United States, the Reagan administration quickly dismissed them as propaganda. In the end, El Mozote was forgotten. The war in El Salvador continued, with American funding.

When Mark Danner's reconstruction of these events first appeared in The New Yorker, it sent shock waves through the news media and the American foreign-policy establishment. Now Danner has expanded his report into a brilliant book, adding new material as well as the actual sources. He has produced a masterpiece of scrupulous investigative journalism that is also a testament to the forgotten victims of a neglected theater of the cold war.

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