GIFT OF THE DEVIL: A HISTORY OF GUATEMALA. Handy, Jim. Toronto, Between the Lines, c1984. 3l9pp, paper, ISBN 0-919946-42-9 (cloth) $26.95. 0-91994W3-7 (paper) $12.95. (Perspectives on Underdevelopment) CIP Grades 12 and up Reviewed by Algis Tribinevicius Volume 13 Number 4 1985 July Jim Handy is a lecturer on Central American history at the University of Toronto and has made numerous research visits to Guatemala in the course of writing ihis book. He has also served as Central American co-ordinator for Amnesty International Canada. Gift of the Devil traces Guatemala's history from pre-colonial times to the present. Handy's doctoral thesis in history examined reform administrations in Guatemala from 1945 10 1954. This, coupled with his work for Amnesty International, where he tried to explain the human rights situation in the country to various audiences, led to this attempt to make the Guatemala of the 1980s understandable through an examination of its history. He tries to show that Guatemala's history was founded in the bitter injustice of colonial conquest, followed by years of dispossession and racial and class oppression that has created a present-day unjust and violent society. After reading the book, one can begin to decipher the tangle of present-day politics in Guatemala as reported in our press. The book is scholarly and well-organized. Each page is amply footnoted with a diversity of sources. It is intended for an educated audience, although parts may be used by a senior high school student working on a research project. Algis Tribinevicius, Tehkummah, Ont.