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The Latin Americanist, June 2008 challenge the rules of war, Sater found other violations of accepted military conduct elsewhere. Take, for example, the case of land mines. So random and cowardly did the use of these new weapons seem to Chileans, their intended victims, that they seldom treated those who could be linked to the use of mines with any battlefield kindness. No work of history can escape some criticism, and Andean Tragedy is no exception. Having spent a lifetime studying Chile, the author’s archival labors for this book rest heavily on the Chilean sources. Would use of the Bolivian and Peruvian archives have changed his interpretations? Perhaps; however, at the end, Sater wrestles with one of the fundamental questions about the war. Why did Chile win and the Allies lose? He argues that Chilean success in this war had little to do with culture, weapons, bravery, and patriotism. Both sides had all in abundance. Instead, victory grew out of the quality of civilian leadership stemming from one side having a history of political stability while the other lacked it almost entirely. Sater does not delve into why such was the case because, of course, that is another story and another book. James A. Lewis Department of History Western Carolina University THE AIDS PANDEMIC IN LATIN AMERICA. By Shawn Smallman. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007, p. 304, $22.50. According to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS ), worldwide 33.2 million people are living with HIV/AIDS. Since its first arrival in Latin America in the early 1980s, 1.6 million people are currently living with HIV/AIDS in this region. Despite the alarming numbers , Latin America’s HIV/AIDS pandemic remains generally stable. The spread of HIV/AIDS can be attributed to a combination of factors including , but not limited to, the Latin sexual culture, gender roles, the influence of the Catholic Church, widespread poverty, and political instability. All have in some way facilitated the spread of HIV/AIDS. Shawn Smallman’s The AIDS Pandemic in Latin America analyzes the reasons for such a vast difference in the severity of the pandemic in the region. His main thesis is that while HIV/AIDS is a disease shaped and spread by very personal behavior, it is also largely affected by international and impersonal factors. Dividing the continent into four regions, Smallman distinguishes specific characteristics that helped both contain and facilitate the spread of HIV/AIDS. The author gives a detailed account of his own field research by illuminating the history, culture, and social influences on the local HIV/AIDS pandemic. The author introduces the readers to a variety of historical and traditional differences while showing various 112 Book Reviews patterns of behavior concerning migration, drug production, drug use, trade, the sex industry, the impact of sex trafficking, and the differences in sexual behavior and identity, such as men having sex with men without perceiving themselves as homosexual. Smallman’s objective is to introduce the readers to the idea that the spread of HIV/AIDS is just as much influenced by personal factors, such as sexual behavior or drug use, as by impersonal ones, such as migration movements, loans, economic aid, or involvement in the drug market and drug wars. While drug production can lead to overall political instability and violence, a drug market also helps spread the disease. Smallman analyzes the differences in government policies, the diverse severities of the epidemic, and the overall nature of the sub-epidemics that exist within the region. He argues that Brazil and Cuba have had the most success containing the spread of HIV/AIDS. However, Brazil’s fight against HIV/AIDS has been a paradox. Brazil uses World Bank loans to make anti-retroviral pharmaceuticals universally accessible to all infected people. Thus, it provoked a conflict with the international community, led by the WTO and the United States, as it attempted to circumvent certain intellectual property rights laws by means of “compulsory licensing.” Cuba, which prides itself on its well-funded public health care system, was confronted with a unique homegrown political protest movement in 1989 expressing its discontent through the self-injection of HIV/AIDS...

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