Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion, and Change

The 5th updated edition of Understanding Central America: Global Forces, Rebellion and Change represents a major upgrade, updating events and even rethinking the basic theoretical issues at the heart of any key understanding of the region as a whole. As such this remains a powerful textbook on Central American politics, and a 'must' for any college-level library.

This is a competent overview of political and economic change in five Central American states: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. The book omits Belize and Panama as belonging to different social worlds, and avoids delving into cultural history. I think the heart of the book is the five chapters on the history of each nation, which show a remarkable diversity of responses to somewhat similar challenges. The authors show how each nation handled its tensions of social inequality inherited from colonial conquest, of local economic elites facing powerful foreign interests, or of competition between military and civilian power. It's fascinating to see how Costa Rica went through a brief civil war in the 1940s, and then abolished its armed forces. Other states militarized their governments to the point open war on political opponents. Where Honduras avoided war and prosecuted army officers for killing civilians, the armies of Guatemala and El Salvador killed a total of near 300,000 civilians. The authors document the role of U.S. foreign policy in detail. They measure the outcomes of America's enormous investment in arming former-colonial oligarchs against the majority of Indian and mixed-race people. The costs of this policy in lives, dollars, human relations was stupefying. Its defense of cleptocrats against workers and tax payers seems amazing in light of recent U.S. economic history. This fourth edition of the study follows events up to 2004. It explores developments in the aftermath of civil wars, as decommissioned combatants often formed criminal gangs, and free trade treaties forced reductions in health, education, and welfare spending. With the help of surveys, studies, and charts, it ponders the prospects non-violent problem-solving, as unemployment rises ominously.

Being an extremely volatile region, Central America is slowly developing into a more peaceful, safe region. This book is highly detailed and researched, and a great general overview of the social, political, and cultural issues which affect Central American countries. I have cited the book several times in my research. I've been to most of Central America as well, the authors capture the essence well. Good for a general read, or for use in academia...