Although likely unfamiliar to many in the United States, the Ford Falcon has long been among Argentina’s most immediately recognizable vehicles. An icon of Cold War developmentalism, the Falcon sedan once represented the promise of import substitution industrialization (ISI) and middle-class consumerism. Its reputation changed markedly, however, after it became the preferred “working car” of paramilitaries and government security forces in the 1970s. Since that time, the Falcon has been most closely associated not with aspirational social mobility but instead with the torture and disappearance of thousands of Argentines, especially during the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional (PRN; Process of National Reorganization), the civic–military dictatorship that held power from 1976 to 1983. Indeed, during the dictatorship, the very same Ford workers who manufactured the Falcon became casualties of the regime’s repression, with many suffering illegal imprisonment and torture. After the restoration of democracy, two dozen employees fought for decades before eventually bringing a successful legal action against Ford Argentina for its collaboration with the PRN during the 1970s. Karen Robert’s Driving Terror seeks to bring the multifaceted story of the Falcon—including the experiences of the workers who built the car and survived state terrorism—to a broader audience. The book, with its accessible style and compelling narrative, undoubtedly achieves that goal. But its accomplishments extend further, combining conversations around repression and human rights abuses with analysis of Cold War material culture and connecting these findings to the history of labor relations under the Proceso.

Driving Terror’s six chapters move chronologically from the arrival of US auto companies in Argentina in the early 1900s through the 2018 judicial ruling in favor of the ex-Ford Argentina workers. Chapter 1 describes the establishment of the Falcon as an exemplar of mid-century Argentine consumerism, highlighting the political and gendered aspects of the advertising campaigns that promoted the car. The second chapter explores the growth of the auto industry into the 1960s, locating Ford Argentina within a broader wave of labor mobilizations and activism that accompanied the sector’s expansion. This increased militancy enabled workers to make significant gains in terms of material benefits and shop-floor power, as Chapter 3 details. The early 1970s saw Ford workers adopt more radical positions and push their employers on issues of safety, compensation, and benefits. Their victories, however, likely contributed to the brutal backlash unleashed after the coup d’état of March 24, 1976, which inaugurated the Proceso. Chapter 4 focuses on the state terrorism that targeted the same Ford employees who had struggled for better working conditions and pay over the first half of the decade. Robert skillfully pairs a careful reading of the Falcon’s shifting public image with a detailed reconstruction of the violence perpetrated against workers at the factory. The fifth chapter carries the story through the end of the dictatorship and into democracy after 1983, emphasizing the initial efforts by workers and family members to pursue justice and the obstacles they confronted. Chapter 6 concludes the narrative with the long journey to the 2018 decision, which maintained that what occurred at Ford Argentina qualified as crimes against humanity, and the sentencing of those responsible.

Across these chapters, Driving Terror argues that the Falcon’s symbolic meaning evolved in response to a combination of transnational and domestic factors. The Cold War and the collapse of Fordism globally, alongside growing middle-class anxieties about economic instability and political turmoil nationally, helped turn the Falcon from an emblem of ISI developmentalism into a potent metonym for state terror. This transformation was paralleled by (and mutually constitutive with) the upheaval affecting Argentina’s working classes, who responded to those same foreign and local pressures with increased belligerence during the early 1970s before suffering the brunt of the PRN’s repression after 1976. Underscoring the intersections between business interests and Cold War policy—personified by Robert McNamara, who was, in succession, president of Ford, US Secretary of Defense, and president of the World Bank—Robert demonstrates that, for Ford Argentina, ensuring profitability trumped human rights concerns, with the company aiding security forces targeting their own employees. As research on corporate complicity with the Proceso has expanded significantly, however, one wonders whether there was space to complicate this narrative without minimizing Ford Argentina’s culpability. There is perhaps also some slippage between US businesses operating in a foreign country and US Cold War interests writ large. The two often overlapped but were not always entirely coincident—despite McNamara’s frequent reappearances. Regardless, Driving Terror provides a strong foundation on which future researchers can build. This impressive book should attract a wide readership and would be excellently suited to both undergraduate and graduate classes on Latin American history, material culture, human rights, and transnational justice work.