These two studies of the colorful and sometimes violent politics of the Dominican Republic offer a striking contrast: similar in geographical framework and in their authors’ hostility to the political systems they have described, the volumes differ conspicuously in their intellectual and emotional qualities and in scholarly merit.
The famous doctoral thesis that presumably cost Jesús de Galíndez his life at the hands of the Trujillo dictatorship has never before appeared in commercial format in the English language, and copies of the two Spanish versions and the single French edition are difficult to come by. Now, by good fortune, it has been skillfully edited by a well-known Latin Americanist. The material has been condensed in those portions that were repetitious or excessively detailed in the lengthy thesis. Editorial comment has been provided. And some of the abundant documentation provided in the original but largely omitted in previous editions has been included. Dr. Galíndez yielded to no man in his hatred of a tyrannical government, but he managed to hold demeaning bitterness at arm’s length. He found little credit due the Trujillo regime, but did acknowledge those achievements that he considered constructive. His scholarship pursued facts rather than polemics; he was aware of history; and a tolerable balance (as much emotional as intellectual) emerged in the work that propelled him into legendry.
Gutiérrez, on the other hand, has produced a work of furor and exaggeration, wholly partisan and inclining toward harangue. The volume depicts the era of the two Balaguer administrations. It incorporates transcripts of interviews with Juan Bosch and the more important leaders of the various leftist sects, directs considerable attention to incidents of police violence, and advocates revolutionary restructuring. In the process the author seemingly forgets that violence and the excessive application of police power have been endemic in the nation’s political life, antedating the Republic, and that these tendencies are either absorbed into state policy (in the case of the dictatorships) or surface in sporadic lawlessness (under democratically elected governments such as the current administration, whose legitimate origins in 1966 Gutiérrez seems to deny, without benefit of documentation, in the face of all the known facts). As a guide to the splinter world of the revolutionary left and the insubstantial dialectic that bemuses its inhabitants, the book may be helpful; as scholarship in a broader context, or as a description of any wider present day reality in the Dominican Republic, it has little value.
