Virginia Garrard-Burnett earned her PhD in History from Tulane University. She is Professor of History at the University of Texas, Austin. She has authored numerous articles and chapters, edited three collected volumes (of which this is the fourth), and written two monographs, the most recent of which is entitled, Terror in the Land of the Holy Spirit: Guatemala under General Efraín Ríos Montt, 1982–1983 (2010). Her forthcoming monograph is on new Christian movements in Latin America.