Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
La cuarta espada es una rigurosa investigaci n period stica sobre Sendero Luminoso y su l der, Abimael Guzm n.
Casi 70.000 muertos produjo la guerra entre el movimiento terrorista Sendero Luminoso y el Estado peruano entre los a os ochenta y noventa. Responsable de m s de la mitad de las v ctimas, Sendero fue el grupo subversivo m s letal en la historia del continente americano. Abimael Guzm n, el hombre que condujo toda esa violencia y se considera a s mismo como la cuarta espada del comunismo internacional tras Lenin, Stalin y Mao, no llevaba armas. No ten a poyo de Gobiernos extranjeros. Ni siquiera estaba presente en el campo de batalla. Detr s de un escritorio, armado con una rigurosa ideolog a, puso en jaque a todo un pa s durante doce a os. Su historia constituye un escalofriante ejemplo del poder destructor de las ideas.
C mo se convirti Guzm n en un objeto de culto capaz de inspirar entre los suyos misiones kamikazes? Qui nes eran sus soldados? C mo eran el amor y el odio entre ellos? La cuarta espada es la primera descripci n de las relaciones humanas en el interior de una c pula terrorista Sendero Luminoso con informaci n proporcionada por sus protagonistas.
Pero m s all del documento period stico, este libro se lee como una novela en la tradici n de A sangre fr a, una inmersi n en la mente del asesino, un retrato del Mal.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
The Fourth Sword is a rigorous journalistic investigation about the Shining Path terrorist group in Peru and its leader Abimael Guzman. Almost 70,000 deaths were caused by the civil war between the Shining Path terrorist movement and the Peruvian government during the eighties and nineties. Responsible for more than half of the victims, Shining Path was the most deadly and dangerous subversive group ever in the history of Latin America.
Abimael Guzman, the man who led such violence and considers himself to be the "fourth sword" of international communism after Lenin, Stalin, and Mao, was not armed. He had no support from foreign governments, and he did not even set foot on the battlefield. Sitting behind a desk and armed with a rigorous ideology, he brought turmoil to the entire country for twelve years.
His story depicts a chilling example of the destructive power of ideology. How did Guzman become such a cult leader capable of encouraging kamikaze missions among his followers? Who were his soldiers? How was the love-hate relationship between them? The Fourth Sword is the first-hand account of personal relationships inside a Shining Path terrorist group with information and accounts provided to the author by its protagonists. This work goes much further than a journalistic investigation, it reads like a a novel; it is an immersion into the mind of a murderer.