| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.5

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the AHR online. About 475 words from this article are provided below; about 599 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the American Historical Association, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time. AHA members can go to the AHA individual membership section to locate their member numbers.
If you are not a member of the American Historical Association, you can:: • Join the AHA and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the American Historical Review.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the American Historical Review (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the American Historical Review.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 111.5 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Caribbean and Latin America

Ramó Bosque-Pé and José Javier Colón Morera, editors. Puerto Rico under Colonial Rule: Political Persecution and the Quest for Human Rights. Albany: State University of New York Press. 2006. Pp. xiv, 256. $70.00.
Most students of international law associate the seventeenth century with the writings of Hugo Grotius, the theorist who laid the foundations of modern public international law. Jurists frequently link the twentieth century with a dramatic expansion of human rights. Although it was a very positive episode in the evolution of universal conventions, a mounting dedication to human rights failed to coincide with a shared vision of precisely what those rights entailed. Overall, North Atlantic countries championed individual over collective human rights; the latter was the preferred standpoint of the Eastern bloc. Still, even in the West there was little consensus on where to locate the perimeter between the rights of an individual and a regime's prerogative to scrutinize individuals or employ violence under the guise of safeguarding state sovereignty.	1
The contributors to this collection of essays assert that, throughout the twentieth century, government officials in Puerto Rico habitually crossed the frontier demarcating the realm of personal liberties from the dominion of sovereignty privilege. They claim that the island's unique status facilitated that boundary crossing. What fundamentally differentiates this territory from other American jurisdictions is its status as a de facto colony. A common theme that runs throughout most of the essays is the persistent persecution of one group by the federal and the Puerto Rican governments: independentistas (independence supporters). Ramón Bosque-Pérez and José Javier Colón Morera grouped their tome into three parts: "Political Persecution in Twentieth-Century Puerto Rico," "Contemporary Issues," and "Vieques." Legal scholars will find chapters in all three sections of great interest. With regard to other disciplines, one can expect an attraction toward particular essays. Perhaps this is the inevitable fate of all interdisciplinary anthologies. Some essays will peak the interest of historians, while others are more appealing to political scientists and sociologists.	2
Bosque-Pérez's essay skillfully pulls together the various facets of human rights abuses detailed throughout this book. The singling out of regime opponents goes back to the Spanish colonial era. Harassing and arresting government opponents continued under U.S. rule, despite an affirmed commitment to individual liberties. Indeed, the public discovered in the waning years of the twentieth century that both the FBI and the Puerto Rican police maintained secret files on tens of thousands of islanders. The overwhelming majority those "subversive" files related the intimate lives of independentistas. As opposed to stressing its exceptional nature, Bosque-Pérez sets this pattern of government behavior in a larger context of intolerance toward dissenters in the United States—especially anarchists, socialists, and labor activists. This is one of the few chapters that will appeal to scholars across disciplinary boundaries.	. . .

There are about 599 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.