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    War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony
    War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony
    War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony
    Audiobook9 hours

    War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony

    Written by Nelson A. Denis

    Narrated by Peter Berkrot

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In 1950, after over fifty years of military occupation and colonial rule, the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico staged an unsuccessful armed insurrection against the United States. Violence swept through the island: assassins were sent to kill President Harry Truman, gunfights roared in eight towns, police stations and post offices were burned down. In order to suppress this uprising, the U.S. Army deployed thousands of troops and bombarded two towns, marking the first time in history that the U.S. government bombed its own citizens.

    Nelson A. Denis tells this powerful story through the controversial life of Pedro Albizu Campos, who served as the president of the Nationalist Party. A lawyer, chemical engineer, and the first Puerto Rican to graduate from Harvard Law School, Albizu Campos was imprisoned for twenty-five years and died under mysterious circumstances. By tracing his life and death, Denis shows how the journey of Albizu Campos is part of a larger story of Puerto Rico and U.S. colonialism.

    Through oral histories, personal interviews, eyewitness accounts, congressional testimony, and recently declassified FBI files, War Against All Puerto Ricans tells the story of a forgotten revolution and its context in Puerto Rico's history, from the U.S. invasion in 1898 to the modern-day struggle for self-determination. Denis provides an unflinching account of the gunfights, prison riots, political intrigue, FBI and CIA covert activity, and mass hysteria that accompanied this tumultuous period in Puerto Rican history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateAug 25, 2015
    ISBN9781494586720
    War Against All Puerto Ricans: Revolution and Terror in America's Colony

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    Reviews for War Against All Puerto Ricans

    4.5/5

    74 ratings9 reviews

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    • 5/5
      truly eye-opening. Stories I heard growing up that I once considered folklore and half-truths can be found in the events described in this book. Thank You. I will try to piece together my history repeatedly listening to this book. I will surely share this book with anyone even remotely interested in learning something.
    • 5/5
      This was an excellent book. I didn’t know about this part of history in Puerto Rico.
    • 5/5
      Beyond illuminating. Incredible journalism depicting an amazing and heartbreaking story. This history MUST be known. This is an absolute must read.

      Fans of Stephen King audiobooks will appreciate the narration style. I can not recommend enough.
    • 4/5
      I've been trying to read more non-fiction in recent years, but I'm highly selective on what I pick up. War Against All Puerto Ricans is my most recent selection. Having married into a Puerto Rican family, I thought knowing a little more about Puerto Rican history could be beneficial (especially if that history is completely unknown and counter to my in-laws patriotic American fervor *wink, wink*). I learned quite a bit.War Against All Puerto Ricans certainly gives us an image of America's territorial island that has largely been covered up. Some of us may know how Puerto Rico was a conquest of the Spanish-American War. Some may recall that the assassination attempt on President Harry Truman was made by Puerto Rican nationalists. Aside from these two details, few contemporaries likely know the ripples of discontent that have surrounded relations between Puerto Rico and its powerful overseer. Most do not know of the massacres that occurred on Puerto Rican streets, civilians mowed down for merely talking of independence. They do not remember when possessing a Puerto Rican flag would land you in jail for anywhere from two months to ten years. They are unaware of the sterilization programs that systematically reduced the numbers of “an inferior race” from an island the United States wished to possess largely for its military advantage and corporate possibilities. They do not know of the war that started and was quickly snuffed by the might of the United States, resulting in the first bombing of American civilians by the U.S. Military. And they've probably never heard of Pedro Albizu Campos, president of the Nationalist Party, and Puerto Rico's answer to Che Guevara, Simón Bolívar, et cetera. Nor of the years Campos spent in prison, subjected to experimentation, i.e. total body irradiation.War Against All Puerto Ricans tells this story, albeit a bit jumbled and repetitive. Like many non-fiction works, War Against... doesn't have quite enough material to fill its length and could be condensed for the sake of a streamlined narrative. That aside, Nelson A. Denis' book provides a history that needs to be told and not forgotten. It is a fairly complete, justly one-sided narrative, that shows ample research and passion. A highly recommended read for Puerto Ricans wanting to know more about their history and history buffs with a strong interest in the abuse by colonial powers.
    • 5/5
      I am what you would call a New York Rican and so there is so so much I don’t know of Puerto Rico. This is a must read. This book has opened my eyes and I plan to the a copy for myself.
    • 5/5
      Un impresionante parte de la historia de Puerto Rico. Nunca antes contada y negada por todos los gobiernos. Albizu Vive!
    • 3/5
      The War Against Puerto Rican’s was a tough read. The historical information and writing were good. However; the vivid accounts of violence was hard to listen to for more than 30 minutes at a time. I think all Americans should read this book but you’ll need to do it with a box of Kleenex nearby. What the US government has done to Puerto Rican’s is heartbreaking and I’m glad I read this book
    • 5/5
      Wow! What a tremendous whirlwind. I read this book as if I were dying of thirst and now I feel quench...and vindicated. This book will make you cry, it will make you angry, and for some of us, it will make us proud...proud that our ancestors fought bravely for the freedom of our country. Every Puerto Rican should read this book, and so should every American.
    • 5/5
      This book was an eye opener. If the author hadn't been so credible, and the events so well-documented (including by recently declassified FBI files), I would have found some of them difficult to believe. For example, I didn't know the extent to which US-backed politicians plundered the island for the benefit of large corporations such as Domino Sugar. I didn't know that in 1950, the US actually bombed PR in order to quell an uprising. And I had no idea that the US Supreme Court had ruled that the U.S. Constitution didn't apply in PR, so well into the late 50s and beyond, Puerto Ricans did not have even the basic protections of the Bill of Rights. Even possessing a PR flag was cause for a prison sentence--no wonder we see so many PR flags on the US mainland! The writing style is fairly plain, which makes the events described all the more shocking. 1/2 star deducted because of some repetition/wordiness.