The Sandinista Revolution: A Global Latin American History

by Mateo Jarquín

The Sandinista Revolution and its victory against the Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua gripped the United States and the world in the 1980s. But as soon as the Sandinistas were voted out of power in 1990 and the Iran Contra affair ceased to make headlines, it became, in Washington at least, a thing of the past.

Mateo Jarquin recenters the revolution as a major episode in the history of Latin America, the international left, and the Cold War. Drawing on research in Nicaragua, Cuba, Mexico, Panama, and Costa Rica, he recreates the perspective of Sandinista leaders in Managua and argues that their revolutionary project must be understood in international context. Because struggles over the Revolution unfolded transnationally, the Nicaraguan drama had lasting consequences for Latin American politics at a critical juncture. It also reverberated in Western Europe, among socialists worldwide, and beyond, illuminating global dynamics like the spread of democracy and the demise of a bipolar world dominated by two superpowers.
Jarquin offers a sweeping analysis of the last left-wing revolution of the twentieth century, an overview of inter-American affairs in the 1980s, and an incisive look at the making of the post–Cold War order.

Genres: History, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

Published April 30, 2024

Reviews

[Julian Pritchard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was good. Similar to Eline Van Ommen's recent book about the Sandinistas, this book places the Nicaraguan revolutionaries in global context, examining how actors in the United States, the USSR, Eastern and Western Europe, and Latin America played key roles in this key arena of the inter-American cold war. The best chapters in this book focus on the efforts of regional actors such as Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela, Panama, and Cuba to support the Sandinistas. The rest of the book focuses on the changing international context with the fall of the USSR and the "third wave" of democratization globally, as well as internal contradictions within the Sandinista government that stifled civil society, as well as the Contras and the Reagan administration's efforts to bring down the Sandinistas.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book offers a wonderful regional history of a revolution that often gets overshadowed by the Iran-Contra scandal in dominant narratives of history. It shows how the revolution that overthrew the Somoza dynasty was an effort involving many players within the region, and even gained some allies within Western Europe. It’s also a story of US intervention; this conflict was viewed by the Sandinistas and other regional actors as a power struggle between North and South, questioning the East-West framing the US applied to their many anti-communist crusades. Finally, this shows how entire regions can be impacted by events in a single country; the Sandinista revolution inspired leftist groups in El Salvador and Guatemala, and the peace process between the Contra and FSLN government led to a wave of democratization in the region.