Battling for Hearts and Minds is the story of the dramatic struggle to define collective memory in Chile during the violent, repressive dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, from the 1973 military coup in which he seized power through his defeat in a 1988 plebiscite. Steve J. Stern provides a riveting narration of Chile’s political history during this period. At the same time, he analyzes Chileans’ conflicting interpretations of events as they unfolded. Drawing on testimonios, archives, Truth Commission documents, radio addresses, memoirs, and written and oral histories, Stern identifies four distinct perspectives on life and events under the dictatorship. He describes how some Chileans viewed the regime as salvation from ruin by Leftists (the narrative favored by Pinochet’s junta), some as a wound repeatedly reopened by the state, others as an experience of persecution and awakening, and still others as a closed book, a past to be buried and forgotten.

In the 1970s, Chilean dissidents were lonely “voices in the wilderness” insisting that state terror and its victims be recognized and remembered. By the 1980s, the dissent had spread, catalyzing a mass movement of individuals who revived public dialogue by taking to the streets, creating alternative media, and demanding democracy and human rights. Despite long odds and discouraging defeats, people of conscience—victims of the dictatorship, priests, youth, women, workers, and others—overcame fear and succeeded in creating truthful public memories of state atrocities. Recounting both their efforts and those of the regime’s supporters to win the battle for Chileans’ hearts and minds, Stern shows how profoundly the struggle to create memories, to tell history, matters.

Battling for Hearts and Minds is the second volume in the trilogy The Memory Box of Pinochet’s Chile. The third book will examine Chileans’ efforts to achieve democracy while reckoning with Pinochet’s legacy.

Steve J. Stern is Alberto Flores Galindo Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. His most recent books include Remembering Pinochet’s Chile: On the Eve of London 1998 and Shining and Other Paths: War and Society in Peru, 1980–1995, both also published by Duke University Press.

Winner, 2007 Bolton-Johnson Prize
  

  

  

  

ACKNOWLEDMENTS xi
MAPS xvi
Introduction to the Trilogy: The Memory Box of Pinoche’s Chile xix
Introduction to Book Two: Battling for Hearts and Minds 1
PART II Foundational Years: Building the Memory Box, 1973-1982
Chapter 1
Chronicling a Coup Foretold? Previews of the Impossible 11
AFTERWORD “This is Chile” 29
Chapter 2
Saving “Chileans of Well-Placed Heart,” 1973-1976 33
AFTERWORD Rumors of the Impossible 77
Chapter 3
Witnessing and Awakening Chile: Testimonial Truth and Struggle, 1973-1977 81
AFTERWORD Laughing and Singing in Times of Trouble 129
Chapter 4
Road to Oblivion? Crisis and Institutionalization, 1977-1982 137
AFTERWORD Coming of Age 179
Chapter 5
Digging In: Counterofficial Chile, 1979-1982 196
AFTERWORD Fending off Despair 231
Conclusion to Part I: Building the Memory Box: Foundational Years 237
PART II Struggles for Control: Memory Politics as Mass Experience, 1983-1988
Chapter 6
Great Shakings: Memory War in the Streets, 1983-1986 249
AFTERWORD Away from Santiago 287
Chapter 7
Time Travel: Memory War in Media and Politics, 1983-1986 297
AFTERWORD Desire 330
Chapter 8
“Did You Forget Me?” The Unexpected Faces of Chile, 1987-1988 336
AFTERWORD Taboo: The making of a Memory Moment 378
Conclusion to Part II: Memory as Mass Experience: Struggles for Control 382
ABBREVIATIONS USED IN NOTES AND ESSAY ON SOURCES 389
NOTES 391
ESSAY ON SOURCES 485
INDEX 507 Latin American Studies, Peru,