Latin America’s Internal Wars

A review of The Quality of Democracy in Latin America, edited by Daniel H. Levine and José E. Molina.

Despite recent progress in the government’s negotiations with rebel groups, Colombia’s problems remain acute: continued violence, growing human rights abuses, severe income inequality, and a depressed economy.

The death of Mexican poet and essayist Octavio Paz on April 20 was (in the words of Mexico’s president Ernesto Zedillo) “an irreplaceable loss for contemporary thought and culture—not just…