The dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, who ruled the Dominican
Republic from 1930 until his assassination in 1961, was one of the
longest and bloodiest in Latin American history. "The Dictator's
Seduction" is a cultural history of the Trujillo regime as it was
experienced in the capital city of Santo Domingo. Focusing on
everyday forms of state domination, Lauren Derby describes how the
regime infiltrated civil society by fashioning a "vernacular
politics" based on popular idioms of masculinity and fantasies of
race and class mobility. Derby argues that the most pernicious
aspect of the dictatorship was how it appropriated quotidian
practices such as gossip and gift exchange, leaving almost no place
for Dominicans to hide or resist.
Drawing on previously untapped documents in the Trujillo
National Archives and interviews with Dominicans who recall life
under the dictator, Derby emphasizes the role that public ritual
played in Trujillo's exercise of power. His regime included the
people in affairs of state on a massive scale as never before.
Derby pays particular attention to how events and projects were
received by the public as she analyzes parades and rallies, the
rebuilding of Santo Domingo following a major hurricane, and the
staging of a year-long celebration marking the twenty-fifth year of
Trujillo's regime. She looks at representations of Trujillo,
exploring how claims that he embodied the popular barrio antihero
the "tiguere" (tiger) stoked a fantasy of upward mobility and how a
rumor that he had a personal guardian angel suggested he was
uniquely protected from his enemies. "The Dictator's Seduction
"sheds new light on the cultural contrivances of autocratic
power.
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