Makers of Democracy

“Few authors manage to tie the inner life of experience to the broader frame of ideas and political economy as skillfully as A. Ricardo López-Pedreros does here. Clearly structured and carefully argued, Makers of Democracy is a master class in how to use one national history to think through transnational theoretical debates and social processes. This bold and impressive book is a landmark work on democracy and the middle class worldwide and an important recasting of Colombian history.” - Mark A. Healey, author of The Ruins of the New Argentina: Peronism and the Remaking of San Juan after the 1944 Earthquake

“In this fascinating and stimulating work A. Ricardo López-Pedreros deconstructs the oft-assumed direct connection between the rise of the middle class and democracy through a rich study of the formation of the new Colombian middle class. Makers of Democracy makes a major contribution to debates about the role of the middle classes and Latin American conceptualizations of democracy and how, through the language of class, gender, and democracy, claims of legitimacy to rule are made.” - Catherine LeGrand, author of Frontier Expansion and Peasant Protest in Colombia, 1850–1936

“This is a brilliant and profoundly insightful book. It should be required reading for anyone interested in the relationships between class, gender, and politics in Latin America.”
  - Jeremy Rayner, American Historical Review

"This historicization of the relationship between middle classness and democracy enables the author to deliver a potent critique of prevailing narratives of Latin America as undemocratic, while reimagining the way we think about democracy itself." - B. A. Lucero, Choice

"[Makers of Democracy] is [a] must-read book for those who want to understand how power relations were configured in the third quarter of the 20th century in Colombia. It makes us question something that is sacred to most of us: democracy. After its thorough historization, [this book] exposes the contradictions of democracy…  it finishes with a rather dark and challenging vision of what democracy means." (Translated from Spanish) - Catalina Muñoz Rojas, Historia Critica

"This provocative book demands that we rethink not only researchers’ portrayal of the middle classes in Latin America but also that we question the conflation of middle-class societies and democracy globally." - Micah Right, Social Movement Studies

"On the one hand, this books rescues from historical oblivion not only the existence of the middle classes but also their importance. It discusses the middle classes and their connection —for better or for worse— with democracy and development… On the other, it highlights the active role in which the middle classes…radicalized themselves against the [developmentalist] imperatives coming from a Global capitalist north. In this way, we find a new reading of the 'invention of development' … during the 1960s and 1970s. At the core of this historiographical originality, [this book] also proposes a methodological approach that highlights the discourses and practices that shaped certain men and women and their efforts to be part of a middle class in Bogotá. We hope this book will soon be translated into Spanish, so that more readers can get familiarized with these transnational stories, uncommon methodological approaches in [Colombian] historiography." (Translated from Spanish)
  - Mauricio Archila Neira, Anuario Colombiano de Historia Social y de la Cultura

"Against perspectives that present an 'objective' and trans-historical image of the middle classes and their (usually positive) relation with democracy, in this insightful volume López-Pedreros illustrates the process by which transnational and domestic actors 'built' the values and characteristics of a middle class in 1960s Colombia." - Eduardo Dargent, Bulletin of Latin American Research

“In Makers of Democracy, A. Ricardo López-Pedreros offers a multidimensional approach to the disputed processes through which particular social actors came to represent the middle classes and the promises of democracy…. This book is a key contribution to the contemporary history of the middle classes, democracy, and processes of political polarization.” - Ingrid Bolivar, Hispanic American Historical Review

“Makers of Democracy should make an impact for those interested in further understanding the formation of democracies, the competing class-based claims and visions for how democracies should be organized, and the realities around struggles for democracy.” - Curtis Kline, Latin American Politics and Society

“Makers of Democracy is an important contribution to twentieth-century Colombian and Latin American history. For specialists of Colombia, it offers a novel interpretation of the conflicts of the 1960s and 1970s, including the role of gender in class formation and political struggle. It will also appeal to a broader audience interested in histories of democracy, class, gender, and US empire in Latin America and the global South.” - Laura Correa Ochoa, H-Nationalism, H-Net Reviews