Margaret Powers:
"Schmidli's carefully researched and well-written book explores the Carter administration’s adoption of human rights policies and the attendant tensions, conflicts, failures, and successes this decision generated....[T]his is an excellent book, and one that is highly readable and valuable both to experts on the topic and undergraduates in the ?elds of law, human rights, Latin America, United States foreign policy/diplomatic history, and the 1970s."
Richard Feinberg:
"In his fast-paced, engrossing account, Schmidli chronicles the fierce internal struggles within the White House and the State Department, where political appointees dedicated to transforming Carter's idealism into concrete policies battled career diplomats accustomed to maintaining cordial relations with anticommunist regimes such as Argentina’s. Schmidli concludes that, despite subsequent policy vacillations, the U.S. extracted some important concessions from the Argentine junta, saving many lives. More broadly, the Carter team succeeded in institutionalizing human rights in U.S. foreign policy.... Drawing on declassified documents and personal interviews, Schmidli paints colorful portraits of key players in the policy debates.... This very valuable study also underscores the vital roles of human rights activists and Congress in laying the foundations for Carter’s diplomatic offensive."
Susan Fitzpatrick-Behrens:
"Schmidli's thorough and nuanced use of the documentary evidence, which includes recently declassified official papers and personal interviews, not only adds revealing new details but also makes a strong case for the importance of a range of midlevel actors like F. Allen Tex Harris at the Buenos Aires embassy who, by the sheer tenacity of their convictions, affected the course of events. By skillfully interweaving such personal close-ups at the micro levels of the policymaking process, Schmidli produced an engaging as well as highly readable account of the rise and inner workings of human rights policies during the Carter administration."
Barbara Keys:
"Scholars interested in human rights diplomacy will find much of value in William Michael Schmidli's engaging account of the human rights dimension of U.S. president Jimmy Carter's policy toward Argentina.. Engagingly written and conveying the sweep of human rights developments in the 1970s concisely and effectively, the book deserves a wide audience."
John R. Bawden:
"As a work of diplomatic history, Schmidli's approach is innovative. He weaves state, non-state and high-level actors into a single narrative by profiling a diverse set of characters, taking the time to describe each figure's background, outlook and place in US government or civil society.... The book's textured analysis makes a valuable contribution to the history of human rights and US-Argentine relations during the Cold War."
Alan McPherson, Associate Professor in International and Area Studies and ConocoPhillips Petroleum Chair of Latin American Studies, University of Oklahoma, author of Yankee No!: Anti-Americanism in U.S.-Latin American Relations:
"The Fate of Freedom Elsewhere is one of the most impressive feats of research and writing on U.S.-Latin American relations that I have read in a while; it makes an important contribution to history. William Michael Schmidli investigates the nature of U.S. human rights policy in the 1970s, mostly during the Carter administration and mostly toward Argentina, and in a broader sense illuminates the impact of the Cold War on human rights policy and vice versa."
"This disturbing study examines the US response to Argentina's 'dirty war,' during which the military government tortured and killed (‘disappeared’) thousands of political dissidents.... Even when President Carter emphasized human rights, the State Department was deeply divided.... As Carter hardened his policy toward the Soviet Union, he relaxed his opposition to Argentina's military government. Schmidli argues that despite Carter's retreat and the Reagan administration's friendly attitude toward military dictatorships, human rights had become institutionalized and could no longer be ignored. When Argentina began a reconciliation process in 1983 after the fall of the dictatorship, Reagan embraced it. Summing Up: Highly recommended."
Itai N. Sneh, City University of New York:
"William Michael Schmidli has made an original contribution by exploring the motives and paradoxes in the inner workings of President Jimmy Carter's human rights practices in Argentina. Underscoring challenges and opportunitiesSchmidli has aptly presented Argentina as the defining test of whether Carter honored his promises to recast U.S. foreign policy with a focus on human rights... His nuanceddetailed analysis concludes that Carter's honest intentions to institutionalize human rights policy partially and temporarily transformed U.S. diplomacy in the Western Hemisphereespecially in Argentinabut that outside pressures minimized that diplomacy's continuity and impact."
