The School of the Americas

Known critically as the School of Dictators, Gill has written the first in-depth anthropological account of US military training for Latin American officers at the School of the Americas (now called the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) in Fort Benning, Georgia. She discusses the way that Latin American military officers sent to the school are attracted to the “American way of life,” how the courses enhance officers’ ability to exercise indiscriminate violence, their enduring ties to the global U.S. military mission, and downplay of human rights violations, which School officials attribute to “a few bad apples.” Carefully researched, thoughtfully… show more.