ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author talks about John J. Johnson's book on an important subject: the effect of militarism upon the social structure of six nations in South America and one in Central America. The military has been the traditional bulwark of the anti-Communist crusades without which, as Johnson himself makes plain, nearly every republic in Latin America would stand politically to the left of where it now is. The military establishments of Latin America are exemplars of lawlessness in their public behavior and of undemocratic processes in their political action. The specific characteristics of the Brazilian military, is overdue; without such analysis the reader would tend to lump the military of Latin America together in an undifferentiated way, without taking into account some of the very special features of the Brazilian historical development that led to a peculiarly nonviolent ideology on the part of the military.
