In Review
Struggling for Survival: Workers, Women, and Class on a Nicaraguan State Farm by Gary Ruchwarger. Westview Press, 1989, 128 pp., $19.95 (paper). This case study of a state-owned tobacco and...
...While Washington's intimate relationship with the religious Right has lent itself to a host of conspiracy theories, Stoll concludes that the movement is better understood as a reflection of broader cultural, social and political transformations which are sweeping the continent...
...Nicaragua's Other Revolution: Religious Faith and Political Struggle by Michael Dodson and Laura Nuzzi O'Shaughnessy...
...While most present day accounts of Haiti stress the sad, but inevitable political "irrationality" of endless dictatorship, Trouillot's scholarly survey examines the legacy of the only successful slave revolution in modem history, and finds the roots and continuing strength of Duvalierism in the structures of Haitian society...
...U. of Texas Press, 1990, 174 pp., $22.50 (cloth), $10.95 (paper...
...Basil Blackwell, 1990, 352 pps...
...These 24 brief oral autobiographies include a broad range of important personages such as Violeta Chamorro, religious leaders and several comandantes, as well as workers, peasants and even Daniel Ortega's mother, who professes faith in both the Virgin and the Revolution...
...The authors set their subject in the context of the vast changes the Latin American Church has undergone over the past 30 years, and contrast it to the religious roots of political, particularly revolutionary, thought in the United States and England...
...So begins one of 14 lesson plans geared to high school students and designed to redress widespread diseducation about the Sandinista Revolution...
...1990, 203 pp...
...Tongues of Fire: The Explosion of Protestantism in Latin America by David Martin...
...Haiti, State Against Nation: The Origins & Legacy of Duvalierism by Michel-Rolph Trouillot...
...Goodbyes and Stories by Juan Carlos Onetti...
...South...
...Though they may err on accuracy of detail, oral histories add dimensions no scholarly study can convey...
...paper), available from the author at Aptdo A-300, Managua, Nicaragua...
...Passage of Darkness: The Ethnobiology of the Haitian Zombie by Wade Davis...
...intervention (occupation 1915-1934, off-shore manufacturing 1970-1990...
...Life Stories of the Nicaraguan Revolution by Denis Lynn and Daly Heyck...
...This book offers a broadly painted picture of the religious sources of the Nicaraguan Revolution...
...One is a hermaphrodite, another is namelessly represented by a circle with a hole in the middle...
...By placing the psyche of his mostly male characters precariously between ego and id, Onetti illuminates a dark misogynist world of violence and irony...
...But the prurient beware: This is serious literature...
...Only a Romance-language writer and possibly only the Brazilian Osman Lins could make graphic eroticism come off symbolically as a mystical quest of uncorrupted innocence...
...29.95 (cloth), $9.95 (paper...
...Prior to Davis' meticulous research, zombies were seen as little more than a symptom of Haitian peasants' notorious instinct for the phantasmagoric...
...Routledge, 1990, 355 pp., $45 (cloth), $14.95 (paper...
...Monthly Review Press, 1990, 282 pp., $28 (cloth), $12 (paper...
...Ruchwarger points to the elimination of the old owners' class and the emergence of new "classes" of managers and technicians, and finds that important advances in women's struggles have yet to achieve emancipation for the women of the countryside...
...Partidos politicos y la blisqueda de un nuevo modelo by Oscar-Ren6 Vargas...
...At last count 10% of the continent had left the Catholic fold...
...Includes fascinating sections on culture, race, and the lasting impact of U.S...
...Is Latin America Turning Protestant...
...U. of North Carolina Press, 1988, 344 pp...
...You are a Nicaraguan in 1977 with neither land nor enough food...
...Network of Educators' Committees on Central America, 1990, 130 pp., $15.00 (paper...
...He analyzes the potions used to induce a prolonged psychotic state, and clearly establishes zombification as a form of social sanction imposed by the clandestine Bizango societies, which Davis argues convincingly were critical in the meteoric rise of the Tontons Macoutes and the Duvalier regime...
...This haunting collection affirms the literary status of this Uruguayan as a twentieth century master, who does for the rural Southern Cone what Faulkner did for the U.S...
...In this book-length essay, independent Left analyst Vargas, traces the history of presidential elections in Nicaragua and the evolution of the 21 political parties active today...
...39.95 (cloth...
...While Protestant forays into Latin America-first by the Puritans followed by the Methodists-are not new, the phenomenal success of the Pentecostal movement certainly is...
...Lin's married hero, Abel, pursues three other women across two continents...
...by David Stoll...
...The seven members of your family share a singleroom shack with no electricity, indoor plumbing or clean drinking water, yet Somoza boasts that Nicaragua has no housing problem because of its beautiful climate...
...U. of California Press, 1990, 424 pp., $24.95 (cloth...
...U. of Texas Press, 1990, 331 pp., $12.95 (paper...
...This case study of a state-owned tobacco and vegetable farm examines the extent to which the transformation of productive relations have altered relations of class and gender...
...by William Bigelow and Jeff Edmundson...
...Avalovara by Osman Lins...
...Inside The Volcano: A Curriculum on Nicaragua ed...
...U. of North Carolina Press, 1990, 279 pp., $39.95 (cloth), $12.95 (paper...
...Stoll examines the socio-religious causes, but the book's real strength lies in its presentation of the variegated movers and shakers behind this modem reformation...
...Martin provides a detailed examination of the countries and communities most receptive to Pentecostalism, the concomitant reasons for the decline of the Catholic Church, and the implications of this ever-expanding movement for the politico-religious hierarchy...
...He argues that a new political system will emerge from the 1990 elections, based on consensus among the country's diverse forces...
Vol. 24 • June 1990 • No. 1
