The powerful, untold story of the 1950 revolution in Puerto Rico
and the long history of U.S. intervention on the island, that the New
York Times says "could not be more timely."
In 1950, after over fifty years of military occupation and colonial
rule, the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico staged an unsuccessful
armed insurrection against the United States. Violence swept through
the island: assassins were sent to kill President Harry Truman,
gunfights roared in eight towns, police stations and post offices
were burned down. In order to suppress this uprising, the US Army
deployed thousands of troops and bombarded two towns, marking the
first time in history that the US government bombed its own citizens.
Nelson A. Denis
tells this powerful story through the controversial life of Pedro
Albizu Campos, who served as the president of the Nationalist Party.
A lawyer, chemical engineer, and the first Puerto Rican to graduate
from Harvard Law School, Albizu Campos was imprisoned for twenty-five
years and died under mysterious circumstances. By tracing his life
and death, Denis shows how the journey of Albizu Campos is part of a
larger story of Puerto Rico and US colonialism.
Through oral
histories, personal interviews, eyewitness accounts, congressional
testimony, and recently declassified FBI files, War Against All
Puerto Ricans tells the story of a forgotten revolution and its
context in Puerto Rico's history, from the US invasion in 1898 to the
modern-day struggle for self-determination. Denis provides an
unflinching account of the gunfights, prison riots, political
intrigue, FBI and CIA covert activity, and mass hysteria that
accompanied this tumultuous period in Puerto Rican history.