For our video on The Terror, we are going to be focusing on the civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala. We will use testimonials from people who survived these wars to give a more personal perspective on the events. For more general background information on the region as a whole, we will use Latin America Since Independence: A History with Primary Sources, by Alexander Dawson, and Guerillas: War and Peace in Central America, by Dirk Kruijt. We will likely use this information in the introduction of the video to explain what was going on throughout Latin America at the time before going into the specific examples of El Salvador and Guatemala. Knowing the regional and global context of the time period, specifically regarding the Cold War, is important for understanding the events of the Terror, as US interventions to stop communism were very significant factors in starting, continuing, or worsening conflicts. US Presidents and Latin American Interventions, by Michael Grow, has a chapter on Guatemala that we can use to explain the role that the US played starting in the Guatemalan Civil War. Escaping the Fire: How an Ixil Mayan Pastor Led His People Out of a Holocaust During the Guatemalan Civil War, by Tomas Guzaro, the pastor himself, is a first person account of the Guatemalan Civil War, and tells the story of the occupation of his village by a guerilla army and his subsequent escape from it with many other refugees. This book provides a lot of information on how the guerilla armies operated, gathered support, and recruited followers. It also gives information on the genocide of Mayan peoples during the war, which will also be discussed in the video to show examples of violence during the Terror outside of the wars themselves. Stories of Civil War in El Salvador: A Battle Over Memory, by Erik Ching, provides a detailed history of the El Salvadorean war and includes memoirs and testimonials from people who lived through it, which we will be able to use to create a better understanding of what was happening in the war and what life was like for those who had to live through it. We want to use personal testimonials to make the video more interesting and to create a more personal and sympathetic connection between the viewers and the events being discussed, as history can often feel disconnected and distant. For students who were raised in relatively peaceful countries like Canada, and who weren’t even alive when these wars were taking place, it can be especially difficult to relate to the material or understand what wars are really like.