NCJ Number
104734
Date Published
1987
Length
226 pages
Annotation
This collection of 12 essays draws upon 19th and 20th century archival sources to explore the varieties of bandit activity in Latin America and to test Eric Hobsbawn's theory of the social bandit, concluding that other models such as the political bandit and the guerilla bandit are required.
Abstract
In examining the myths of social banditry, one paper finds strong economic motives behind banditry in Mexico from the late colonial era through the 1910 revolution. Other essays describe the violent equestrian subculture of the Ilaneros of Venezuela and social roots of gaucho bandits on the Argentine pampas. The career of a famous Brazilian bandit, Antonio Silvino, is analyzed. A portrait of the Brazilian bandit king Lampiao challenges Hobsbawn's social theories. Indian and mestizo communities of the Andean highlands provide contrasting views of bandit activity as a response to economic crises. Two essays examine linkages between political violence and banditry in Cuba during World War I and the period of Violencia which plagued Columbia from the late 1940's through the mid-1960's. One author traces the origins of the unflattering cinematic outlaw of Hollywood born in the violent years of the Mexican Revolution. The final papers critique prevailing theories of criminology and summarize deficiencies in Hobsbawn's theories. Glossary, bibliography, and index.