With Buenas al pleito, Alejandro Bendaña fills an important lacuna in the study of Augusto C. Sandino and his 1927–33 rebellion. While it is common to hear about Blanca Aráuz, Sandino's wife, Bendaña uncovers a host of women who supported Sandino's forces in myriad ways. But Bendaña aims to do more than restore these women to history; he argues for shifting focus from the men on the front lines of battle to the people at war. Those in the rear guard were also combatants, Bendaña argues, and, in large part, they were women. They were the base of social legitimation and the key to logistics for the armed struggle.
Bendaña is careful, however, not to exaggerate the roles that these women played and Sandino's openness to women in the struggle. This was still a patriarchal world, and Sandino was a product of his times. Women almost never fought alongside...
