During an armed conflict or period of gross human rights violations, the first priority is a cessation of violence. For the cease-fire to be more than a lull in hostilities and atrocities, however, it must be accompanied by a plan for political transition and social reconstruction. Essential to this long-term reconciliation process is education reform that teaches future generations information repressed under dictatorial regimes and offers new representations of former enemies. In Teaching the Violent Past, Cole has gathered nine case studies exploring the use of history education to promote tolerance, inclusiveness, and critical thinking in nations around the world. Online Book Companion is available at: http: //www.cceia.org/resources/for_educators_and_students/teaching_the_violent_past/index.html

This reader brings together more than 200 texts and images in a broad introduction to Guatemala's history, culture, and politics. In choosing the selections, the editors sought to avoid representing the country only in terms of its long experience of conflict, racism, and violence. And so, while offering many perspectives on that violence, this anthology portrays Guatemala as a real place where people experience joys and sorrows that cannot be reduced to the contretemps of resistance and repression. It includes not only the opinions of politicians, activists, and scholars, but also poems, songs, plays, jokes, novels, short stories, recipes, art, and photographs that capture the diversity of everyday life in Guatemala. The editors introduce all of the selections, from the first piece, an excerpt from the Popol Vuh, a mid-sixteenth-century text believed to be the single most important source documenting pre-Hispanic Maya culture, through the final selections, which explore contemporary Guatemala in relation to neoliberalism, multiculturalism, and the dynamics of migration to the United States and of immigrant life. Many pieces were originally published in Spanish, and most of those appear in English for the first time.