On Our Own Terms

“An extensively researched and thoughtful volume. . . . a necessary intervention in how we examine development, as it moves away from a focus on policy and toward how development was implemented, contested, and negotiated on the ground.”—Hispanic American Historical Review

“Creatively researched and thoughtfully written and analysed, On Our Own Terms is a welcome contribution to the historiography of the Cold War in Guatemala.”—Journal of Latin American Studies

“Excellent. In this well-researched book . . . Foss shows readers how states used development to forge a politically useful populace. On Our Own Terms is a praiseworthy contribution.”—Journal of Social History

“An innovative study of Cold War-era development projects in rural Guatemala. . . . Foss skillfully weaves a chronological narrative that spans significant national, regional, and global shifts, integrating them into her history with such grace that her reader might overlook this accomplishment.”—The Americas

“A pivotal contribution to the study of development and Indigenous history in Guatemala. Foss’s account places Indigenous communities at the center of the global Cold War, revealing them as purposive participants in development initiatives over a half-century of Guatemalan history.” —A Contracorriente

“Foss’s study provides a devastating analysis. . . . The breadth of her sources, the depth to which she mines them, and the complex ways she interweaves them is impressive. On Our Own Terms is a multilayered study of development thinking and practice on Guatemala’s Indigenous people, sufficiently historicized to provide a valuable contribution to Cold War historiography.”—Journal of American History

“Foss offers a crucial window into twentieth-century Guatemalan history and the Latin American Cold War and sheds new light on the continuities and discontinuities in imaginations of citizenship, modernization, and nation.”—Julie Gibbings, author of Our Time Is Now: Race and Modernity in Postcolonial Guatemala

“Adroit, adept, and rooted in the daily experiences of Indigenous and ladino actors who implemented or were otherwise engaged with aid projects and programs, this will be an oft-cited book in the scholarly literature on postcolonial Guatemala and the effects of development and modernization more broadly.”—David Carey Jr., author of I Ask for Justice: Maya Women, Dictators, and Crime in Guatemala, 1898–1944