Arditti, Rita. Searching for Life: The Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the Disappeared Children of Argentina. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999; New York: Teachers College Press, 2003. 235 pp.

by Carey Kaplan and Susan Kuntz

Searching for Life, Rita Arditti's rare gem of a book, has many facets, each of which reflects a different dimension of this inspirational story about how a group of "housewives" resisted the "worst dictatorship in Argentine history" and changed the world just as Margaret Mead says a "small group of thoughtful committed citizens" can do. In one of the best examples of truly interdisciplinary feminist scholarship that I have read, this well-researched nonfiction work reads like a complex story that is part horrifying global political history, part riveting mystery novel, part heroic quest journey, part roadmap for social action and community organizing, part model for how to use science in service of human rights, and ultimately, all about the kind of real courage that is born of great love—the love between mother and child.