“All of us who attempt to practice politically engaged research have stood on the shoulders of Orlando Fals Borda. With the publication of Cowards Don't Make History we finally understand why: Joanne Rappaport's meticulous research reveals the profoundly creative and original alchemy that resulted when virtuoso academics collaborated with equally talented grassroots intellectuals in shared political struggles and knowledge production. Rappaport enables us to honor Fals Borda's life work, not as infallible model or method, but as stern inspiration for the unfinished tasks of twenty-first-century social science, still in search of the courage fully to confront the somber urgencies of the present.”
~Charles R. Hale, coeditor of, Otros Saberes: Collaborative Research on Indigenous and Afro-Descendant Cultural Politics
“The essential, definitive reference for this crucial stage of Orlando Fals Borda's thought, politics, and collaborative research, Cowards Don't Make History reaches beyond Latin America to all who are concerned with the social construction of knowledge and the politics and sociology of knowledge. This stimulating, innovative, and rigorous book is a model for exploratory, interactive research.”
~Catherine C. LeGrand, coeditor of, Close Encounters of Empire: Writing the Cultural History of US-Latin American Relations
"This book is for the specialist but will find wide appeal across the social sciences; sociologists will read the book, as well as anthropologists, historians and folks interested in graphic novels/comics as sources.… Rappaport's work forces researchers and scholars outside of Colombia to think more critically about scholarship and activism."
~Michael J. LaRosa, ReVista
"Cowards Don’t Make History is an informative read for anthropologists of education. Engaged and activist researchers will appreciate the archival examination of a seminal researcher operating in a contentious political context. . . . Critical teacher educators will welcome the book as a tool for deconstructing the ethical, cultural, and political nature of education. Finally, researchers who are curious about the politics of socially constructed knowledge will find this book both compelling and thought provoking."
~Kyle Kopsick, Anthropology and Education Quarterly
