This book presents original research of violence against women in both achieved and failed states (i.e. Austria, the United States, and Nicaragua) from both a political and psychological perspective. Ileana Rodriguez presents various cases studies that showcase the hard data provided by articles on gender violence (incest, rape, feminicide) in the media, with advanced feminist theories leaning on Freud and Lacan, and with literary fiction that speaks of masculine desire.

Autorentext
 Ileana Rodríguez is the Humanities Distinguished Professor Emerita at The Ohio State University, USA, and an Associated Researcher at the Instituto de Historia de Nicaragua y Centroamérica (IHNCA). She is the author of numerous titles, including Liberalism at its Limits: Crime and Terror in the Latin American Cultural Text (2009), Transatlantic Topographies: Island, Highlands, Jungle (2005), and Women Guerrillas, and Love: Understanding War in Central America (1996). She is one of the editors of The Cambridge History of Latin American Women's Literature (2015).