Central America

Captured Peace
Elites and Peacebuilding in El Salvador
By Christine J. Wade

The most comprehensive, up-to-date book on Salvadoran politics of the last twenty-five years.

Threatening Others
Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica
By Carlos Sandoval-Garcia

During the last two decades, a decline in public investment has undermined some of the national values and institutions of Costa Rica. The resulting sense of dislocation and loss is usually projected onto Nicaraguan “immigrants.”Threatening Others: Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica explores the representation of the Nicaraguan “other” in the Costa Rican imagery.

Peasants in Arms
War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994
By Lynn Horton

Drawing on testimonies from contra collaborators and ex-combatants, as well as pro-Sandinista peasants, this book presents a dynamic account of the growing divisions between peasants from the area of Quilalí who took up arms in defense of revolutionary programs and ideals such as land reform and equality and those who opposed the FSLN.Peasants

Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas
By Karen Kampwirth

In many Latin American countries, guerrilla struggle and feminism have been linked in surprising ways. Women were mobilized by the thousands to promote revolutionary agendas that had little to do with increasing gender equality. They ended up creating a uniquely Latin American version of feminism that combined revolutionary goals of economic equality and social justice with typically feminist aims of equality, nonviolence, and reproductive rights.Drawing

Populist Seduction in Latin America
By Carlos de la Torre

Is Latin America experiencing a resurgence of leftwing governments, or are we seeing a rebirth of national-radical populism? Are the governments of Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa becoming institutionalized as these leaders claim novel models of participatory and direct democracy? Or are they reenacting older traditions that have favored plebiscitary acclamation and clientelist distribution of resources to loyal followers?

Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution
Nicaragua, El Salvador, Chiapas
By Karen Kampwirth

In many Latin American countries, guerrilla struggle and feminism have been linked in surprising ways. Women were mobilized by the thousands to promote revolutionary agendas that had little to do with increasing gender equality. They ended up creating a uniquely Latin American version of feminism that combined revolutionary goals of economic equality and social justice with typically feminist aims of equality, nonviolence, and reproductive rights.Drawing

Threatening Others
Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica
By Carlos Sandoval-Garcia

During the last two decades, a decline in public investment has undermined some of the national values and institutions of Costa Rica. The resulting sense of dislocation and loss is usually projected onto Nicaraguan “immigrants.”Threatening Others: Nicaraguans and the Formation of National Identities in Costa Rica explores the representation of the Nicaraguan “other” in the Costa Rican imagery.

Writing Women in Central America
Gender and the Fictionalization of History
By Laura Barbas-Rhoden

What is the relationship between history and fiction in a place with a contentious past? And of what concern is gender in the telling of stories about that past?Writing Women in Central America explores these questions as it considers key Central American texts. This study analyzes how authors appropriate history to confront the rhetoric of the state, global economic powers, and even dissident groups within their own cultures.

Writing Women in Central America
Gender and the Fictionalization of History
By Laura Barbas-Rhoden

What is the relationship between history and fiction in a place with a contentious past? And of what concern is gender in the telling of stories about that past?Writing Women in Central America explores these questions as it considers key Central American texts. This study analyzes how authors appropriate history to confront the rhetoric of the state, global economic powers, and even dissident groups within their own cultures.

Taking Root
Narratives of Jewish Women in Latin America
Edited by Marjorie Agosín

In Taking Root, Latin American women of Jewish descent, from Mexico to Uruguay, recall their coming of age with Sabbath candles and Hebrew prayers, Ladino songs and merengue music, Queen Esther and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Rich and poor, Sephardi and Ashkenazi, Jewish immigrant families searched for a new home and identity in predominantly Catholic societies.

Terror in the Countryside
Campesino Responses to Political Violence in Guatemala, 1954–1985
By Rachel A. May

The key to democratization lies within the experience of the popular movements. Those who engaged in the popular struggle in Guatemala have a deep understanding of substantive democratic behavior, and the experience of Guatemala’s civil society should be the cornerstone for building a meaningful formal democracy.In Terror in the Countryside Rachel May offers an in-depth examination of the relationship between political violence and civil society.

Managing the Counterrevolution
The United States and Guatemala, 1954–1961
By Stephen M. Streeter

The Eisenhower administration’s intervention in Guatemala is one of the most closely studied covert operations in the history of the Cold War. Yet we know far more about the 1954 coup itself than its aftermath. This book uses the concept of “counterrevolution” to trace the Eisenhower administration’s efforts to restore U.S. hegemony in a nation whose reform governments had antagonized U.S. economic interests and the local elite.Comparing the Guatemalan case to U.S.-sponsored

Peasants in Arms
War and Peace in the Mountains of Nicaragua, 1979–1994
By Lynn Horton

Drawing on testimonies from contra collaborators and ex-combatants, as well as pro-Sandinista peasants, this book presents a dynamic account of the growing divisions between peasants from the area of Quilalí who took up arms in defense of revolutionary programs and ideals such as land reform and equality and those who opposed the FSLN.Peasants

Argentina, the United States, and the Anti-Communist Crusade in Central America, 1977–1984
By Ariel Armony
· Foreword by Thomas W. Walker

Ariel Armony focuses, in this study, on the role played by Argentina in the anti–Communist crusade in Central America. This systematic examination of Argentina’s involvement in the Central American drama of the late 1970s and early 1980s fine–tunes our knowledge of a major episode of the Cold War era.Basing his study on exhaustive research in the United States, Argentina, and Nicaragua, Armony adroitly demolishes several key assumptions that have shaped the work of scholars in U.S.

Panamanian Militarism
A Historical Interpretation
By Carlos Guevara Mann

Carlos Guevara Mann argues that Panamanian militarism, a consequence of the breakdown of legitimacy that occurred in the early nineteenth century, is more a manifestation of a deeply-rooted political tradition than an isolated phenomenon of the late twentieth century. He examines the variable US policy approach to domestic stability with the overall context of US hegemony in the isthmus and its shaping of Panamanian militarism.Focusing