This collective book argues that Latin American militaries actively construct “countermemories” to challenge human rights narratives in their countries. For decades, both academic and public attention has focused on democratization, truth commissions, transitional justice, and the memories of victims. This volume appeals to Argentine sociologist Elizabeth Jelin’s foundational framework to shift the analytical lens to focus on the active “memory work” being done by the perpetrators and their civilian allies. Its strength lies in its comparative approach, revealing that, while Latin American militaries shared a unified ideological foundation during the Cold War, their methods for shaping history varied based on how their respective dictatorships ended. The core differences depend on two major variables: how much political power militaries retained during the transition back to democracy, and whether the country was dealing with an ongoing conflict at the time.

The introduction by Milton and Lazzara establishes this framework, and the succeeding chapters adapt it to analyze their case studies. The thirteen authors use memoirs, film, photographs, private museums, judicial proceedings, and other sources to show how military actors appropriated the tools and methods that were first devised to convict them in order to later frame themselves as the “true victims.” The book covers eight different Latin American countries.

The implications are often unsettling. The chapter by Mariana Achugar and Gabriela Fried Amilivia, for instance, focuses on two notorious Uruguayan perpetrators to showcase how said human rights violators have used their public platforms and trial testimonies to openly boast about, justify, or minimize acts of torture and forced disappearance. Valentina Salvi, in turn, analyzes how Argentine army officers navigated their transition from state-celebrated heroes to convicted “genocidaires,” ultimately establishing a revisionist discourse which shifted from a “victor” identity to presenting them as “victims” of the state. The contributions on Brazil and Chile (by Rebecca Atencio, Leith Passmore, and Lazzara) cover issues such as the weaponization of gender to discredit torture victims, the adoption of the terminology of transitional justice, and the various generations’ responses to their dark pasts. Besides dealing with the Southern Cone, whose countries have been the most prominent test cases for memory studies in the past three or four decades, the volume also addresses Colombia (by María Emma Wills Obregón and Nicolás Rodríguez Idárraga), Guatemala (by Jo-Marie Burt), El Salvador (by Rachel Hatcher), and Peru (by Milton and Carla Granados Moya, and Gladys Vázquez Zeballos). Across these various countries, contributors show that state terrorism is far from being generally recognized and that military officials are often successful “memory entrepreneurs” who fight to reframe their histories around “heroism and sacrifice” amidst ongoing internal conflicts involving indigenous communities.

At first glance, this may look like a sort of academic “rebranding”—simply taking the well-established perspectives on memory and trauma and applying them to new political actors. This is true for many of the individual chapters. However, taken as a whole, the book helps challenge some of the main tenets of memory studies. It stands in sharp contrast to an ever-growing literature which, far from the originality of Jelin and other pioneers, has often repeated the same platitudes. By focusing on these specific actors, the volume shatters the assumption that memory equals justice; instead, it proves that, far from being a tool of resistance that heals societies and prevents future atrocities, memory can be weaponized from various ideological perspectives. Additionally, it shows that “transitional justice,” no matter how extensive, rarely closes up political rifts, which tend to reappear in societies that remain profoundly unequal and prone to confrontation, even if most are currently under democratic rule.

Finally, the book shifts the focus from earlier memory studies that were loosely rooted in psychoanalysis (and thus centered around issues such as trauma, mourning, grief, and literal and symbolic scars) toward a new vocabulary based on institutional sociology. In doing so, the collection analyzes how militaries manage internal loyalty and manipulate the legal system. Ultimately, the volume helps explain why far-right, revisionist politics are winning elections in Latin America. It points out that military narratives are not just isolated fabrications; they resonate with broad civilian populations, fueling the rise of political figures like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Javier Milei in Argentina.