Foundations of Despotism

Reviews / Votes

"One of the best works ever done on the Dominican Republic, this wonderful book goes a long way toward explaining not only the long-lived Trujillo dictatorship but subsequent Dominican social and political history as well. It is also a powerful critique of the simplistic demonizing of the Caribbean dictatorial model of politics attached to strongmen like Trujillo, Somoza, and Duvalier."-Lowell Gudmundson, Mount Holyoke College "...It becomes clear that Foundations of Despotism is indeed a sophisticated, scholarly antidote to many of the works on the Trujillo regime that have come out in the past four decades..."-Canadian Journal of History "[T]his is an elegantly written, extensively documented, and superbly argued work. Turits combines traditional, archival work with innovative forms of oral history, and no doubt it will stand the test of time as a fundamental text in the historiography of the Caribbean."-The Americas "Turits has given us a solid and original contribution to the vast literature on Rafael Leonidas Trujillo as well as a splendid contribution to the growing literature on peasants, modernization, and social change."-Canadian Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Studies