The Last Door: A History of Torture in Mexico's War Against Subversives Volume 9 (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780520404205)

As guerrilla groups sprouted up across Mexico in the early 1970s, the military and police routinely resorted to extreme acts of violence, including the systematic use of torture. In The Last Door, Gladys McCormick provides the most thorough account of how torture became a crucial and routine practice of the Mexican government's war against subversives. Drawing from extensive oral history interviews and declassified government documents, the reader is taken through experiences of arrest, torture, and detention in which forced disappearances became all too common and advocates for justice rallied around political prisoners. Torture was not always about extracting information; it was also about inflicting punishment on a faceless so-called enemy and instilling terror into advocates of social change. As McCormick argues, torture became a quotidian practice of state-making in Mexico during the 1970s, leaving individuals and their families forever changed. The lack of repercussions for government officials notorious for employing torture, even in spite of a growing movement for truth and justice, has led to entrenched impunity that is endemic in Mexico as its contemporary security crisis continues.

Author: Gladys I. McCormick
ISBN-10: 0520404203
ISBN-13: 9780520404205
Publisher: University of California Press
Language: English
Published: 05/20/2025
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback