Elizabeth Shesko
Elizabeth Shesko is Associate Professor of History at Oakland University in Michigan. Her research focuses on twentieth-century Bolivia, investigating the deployment of violence and its effects on the interactions between the state and its residents. Her book, Conscript Nation: Coercion and Citizenship in the Bolivian Barracks, was published by University of Pittsburgh Press in 2020. Her peer-reviewed articles have appeared in Hispanic American Historical Review, International Labor and Working-Class History, and an edited volume on the Chaco War.
Working with Primary Sources
Source 1 is a letter in the Ministry of Defense archives that speaks to the politics in the military and the personal importance of military paperwork.
Sources 2 and 3 are excerpts from early post-revolutionary editions of the Revista Militar. The first is a pro-MNR editorial published in May, the first edition of the Revista after the revolution. It speaks to questions about continuity/change which is central to Shesko’s research. The second excerpt has images of recruitment efforts in 1953, showing the uninterrupted cycle of recruitment.
Source 4 is an SMO sheet that shows the dismissal of conscripts on 4/15/52 “con instruccion deficiente”.
We thank Elizabeth Shesko for providing these sources.