Colombia's unique history of brutality and violence in the 1850's and 1860's. How can you make such an interesting topic unbearably boring? Write it like a student trying to impress his professor. I can learn much more from listening to my wife's stories about those days. [...]

Liberals were butchered. The military and police, on explicit orders from the Conservative Party government brutally killed and stole anything of value from all Liberal Party members. The government was absolutely corrupt and allowed a ghastly assault of murder, rape and torture. Consequently, the Liberal Party was forced to form a guerrilla resistance army. La Violencia is unquestionably the ugliest chapter in Colombian history and possible the greatest episode of genocide in Latin America. To that end, Gonzalo Sanchez and Donny Meerterns document the hatred that fueled the violence in Colombia. This book is gory and destroys the feeble argument that Colombia is the oldest democracy in Latin America.