Tortured History: Filibustering, Rhetoric, And Walker's War in Nicaragua (William Walker) (Critical Essay‪)‬

Though William Walker was celebrated for his conquest of Nicaragua in 1855, it was his literary skill, rather than his military or political acumen, that allowed him to contribute the dominant imaginary of Latin America to US culture. Citing key passages from his memoir, The War in Nicaragua, the author analyzes the nexus of Walker's rhetorical strategies and ideological presentations of geopoliticized territory. The formative effect of Walker's geopolitical style emerges most clearly in his celebration of torture as a necessary political act, where his racialist view of individual subaltern behavior is expressed as both nationally representative and threatening to US stability. **********