This book offers a groundbreaking perspective on the 1973 Chilean coup, highlighting Brazil’s pivotal role in shaping the political landscape of South America during the Cold War. Shifting the focus from the United States to interregional dynamics, Mila Burns argues that Brazil was instrumental in the overthrow of Salvador Allende and the establishment of Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship.
Drawing on original documents, interviews, and newly accessible archives, particularly from the Brazilian Truth Commission, Burns reveals Brazil’s covert involvement in the coup, providing weapons, intelligence, and even torturers to anti-Allende forces. She also explores the resistance networks formed by Brazilian exiles in Chile. Burns’s impeccable research—combining history, anthropology, and political science—makes Dictatorship across Borders a vital addition to Cold War studies, reshaping how we understand power and resistance in South America.
“Burns presents a vivid, detailed narrative and an urgency that adds resonance and depth to the individual and intertwined histories of Brazil and Chile.”—North American Congress on Latin America
“A most impressive work of empirical scholarship, Dictatorship across Borders reveals Cold War Brazil as a kind of imperial viceroy for the United States. Drawing on new oral histories and freshly declassified Latin American archives, the book’s analytic breadth ranges from a Gramscian analysis of the agency of Brazil’s bourgeoisie to a Global South history framework to describe socialist Brazilian exiles forming counterhegemonic solidarities across borders.”—Thomas C. Field Jr., author of From Development to Dictatorship: Bolivia and the Alliance for Progress in the Kennedy Era
“A critically important contribution to our understanding of Cold War history in South America . . . [that shows] how the echoes of past authoritarianism continue to shape contemporary politics—not least in the recurrent admiration shown by Bolsonaro, a former soldier, for the military dictatorship.”—Latin American Review of Books
“An empathetic and humanist history of the challenges and dangers faced by Brazilians who sought refuge abroad as their country descended into authoritarianism, Brazilian involvement in Chile, and what happened to Brazilians in Chile upon the coup that toppled Allende.” — Patrick Barr-Melej, author of Psychedelic Chile: Youth, Counterculture, and Politics on the Road to Socialism and Dictatorship
MILA BURNS 