In this accessible study, Dutch development scholar, diplomat, and policy adviser Dirk Kruijt provides a focused, analytical introduction to the leaders of the three insurgencies in Central America that commanded worldwide attention from the 1970s through the mid-1990s. Informed by several years of serving as a policy advisor and engaging in collaborative academic research on the isthmus, more than 90 interviews with political and military leaders, and access to social scientists and intellectuals as well as literary and archival sources, Kruijt provides an instructive account of the guerrillas’ motivations, organizational structures, strategies, and tactics amid their shared historical contexts of oligarchic oppression, deep social inequality, and unhelpful U.S. influence. This historical analysis is complemented by an unvarnished assessment of the revolutionaries’ successes and failures, their legacies, and the as-yet-unmet challenges and unresolved tensions that remain in the region today.
Using land, unemployment, and demographic data portraying growing social exclusion and...
