Caught in the Crossfire: Revolutions, Repression, and the Rational Peasant. By T. David Mason. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2004. 328p. $78.00 cloth, $30.95 paper.

Among citizens and scholars in many parts of the world, concern about political violence has been intense since the United States declared a war on terror after 9/11. In this volume, T. David Mason reminds us that, tragically, insurgency was common in the last half of the twentieth century, and he explores a question that remains fundamental: Why, when rebel victory is uncertain at best and the risks large, do people rebel? He probes this question primarily with respect to peasants in Latin America, but his answers are more broadly relevant as well.