1. The enigma of violent realities in Central America : towards a historical perspective / Sebastian Huhn and Hannes Warnecke-Berger -- 2. How to explain and how not to explain contemporary criminal violence in Central America / Heidrun Zinecker -- 3. Of Pandillas, Pirucas, and Pablo Escobar in the Barrio / Dennis Rodgers -- 4. Memories of violence in the Salvadoran Civil War / Erik Ching -- 5. Questioning the crime wave / Sebastian Huhn -- 6. The Salvadoran armed left and revolutionary violence (1970-1980) / Alberto Martín Álvarez and Eudald Cortina Orero -- 7. On collective violence in nineteenth-century Guatemala / Michael Riekenberg -- 9. Borderlands and public violence in a shadow polity / Robert H. Holden -- 9. Forms of violence in past and present : El Salvador and Belize in comparative perspective / Hannes Warnecke-Berger -- 10. The violence of dispossession : Guatemala in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries / Jim Handy.
"This book highlights historical explanations to and roots of present phenomena of violence, insecurity, and law enforcement in Central America." --page 4 of cover