But most political analysts say a large majority wants to put the era of radical politics and repression behind it, a trend equally apparent in neighboring Argentina and Brazil, which also went through periods of rule by military juntas.
A comprehensive account of an alarming yet persistent historical phenomenon, The Wrong Hands will reshape our understanding of radical violence and state repression in American history.
Perhaps this gap is due to the severe repression that radicals of any color in America faced as early as the 1930s, and into the Red Scare of the 1950s.
It's no surprise that the film director Losey adapted it and included it in his trilogy of radical works examining Englishness, class, repression and morality alongside The Servant and Accident; the screenplay of The Go-Between is a pristine and skilful reworking by Harold Pinter.
Given that there are many subject positions that are positions of repression and dehumanization, radical subjectivity and art may come from any of these positions.
Stalin's paranoia, Mr. Montefiore observes, was "part of a personal vicious circle that was to prove so deadly for many who knew him": "His radical policies led to excessive repressions that led to the opposition he most feared.
While winning mass support with promises of radical reform, she also unleashed wide repression against the Marxist left, thereby reassuring the middle classes and the business community that she was a sound investment.
As the Shah's repression grew increasingly violent, radical voices rose to the forefront of the opposition, and the voices of reason were marginalized.
Radicals on the left historically have used those tactics to incite the extreme right with the calculated design of fostering a regime of repression from which the radicals on the left hope to emerge as the ultimate victor.
How much this failure to learn and grow as a social movement was a consequence of powerful waves of political repression that prompted American radicals to assume a low profile is difficult to assess.
SINCE its founding in Egypt in 1928 the Muslim Brotherhood has suffered repeated bouts of repression, defections by jihadist radicals and liberal moderates alike, and fractious disputes over regional crises, such as Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.
