Pinochet in Piccadilly by Andy Beckett

Truth and reconciliation after a very British coup

I can easily recall my feelings on hearing that General Pinochet had been arrested in London: elation mixed with resurgent anger. During the legal shenanigans that accompanied the general's stay in Britain, though, many prominent figures – including Lady Thatcher – expressed outrage. Pinochet was not a criminal: he had brought growth to Chile, he had been "our" friend.

The debate often seemed distant from British concerns. One of the strengths of Pinochet in Piccadilly is that it places this political earthquake starkly in context, so that there is no excuse for believing that events across the Andes do not relate to us.

Beckett traces links between Chile and Britain back to the 19th century, and Thomas Cochrane, an unlikely Chilean independence hero. The Scots admiral routed the Spanish in 1820, and today most Chilean towns have a Calle Cochrane. After independence, Valparaíso – Chile's main port – became awash with British businessmen, and by the 1870s British entrepreneurs had developed nitrate fields in the desert north which relied on something close to slave labour.

Yet while this British education in free trade has been forgotten here, the same is not so in Chile. Last year's most popular Chilean soap opera featured a fusty British owner of a nitrate mine. The geographical boundaries of ocean, desert and mountains created an insular mentality, and Chileans call themselves "the English of South America".

Beckett shows how this complex mutual history affected both Pinochet's overthrow of Allende's government in 1973, and the atmosphere in Britain. His revelation that some quarters were open to a Pinochet-style coup in Britain in the 1970s is disquieting. Although his argument that Thatcher was inspired by Pinochet economics rehashes familiar ground, as he visits key locations in Chile and Britain the similarities are apparent.

Pinochet's legacy in Chile is complex. In rural areas – where schools and roads were built – he remains popular. Although Beckett does not dissect the psychology of Pinochet supporters, this books– like Mario Vargas Llosa's recently published novel – raises the theme of the emotional legacy of dictatorship.

Until recently, reconciliation was a distant prospect. A few years ago, I met a Chilean with Scottish ancestry who had been tortured in Santiago's National Stadium in 1973; 30 miles away, I met someone who had been an army conscript, forced to dig mass graves for those killed in the stadium. Most of his colleagues at the time had since gone mad or committed suicide.

The unspoken violation felt by many Chileans was brought into the open by Pinochet's arrest. Recent developments suggest that the affair may yet have a similar role to that of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa, forcing these damaging wounds into the open so that they may begin to heal.