BLOOD OF BROTHERS: Life and War in Nicaragua

by Stephen Kinzer ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 4, 1991

From New York Times reporter Kinzer, a balanced and engaging account of Sandinista role in Nicaragua. Using a combination of quotes gathered in formal interviews, historical notes, and from personal anecdotes, Kinzer shows a nation hopeful for revolutionary change becoming increasingly poor and desperate. While his history is primarily a chronicle of Sandinistan shortcomings, Kinzer does not diminish the previous dictatorship's horrors, and he credits the Sandinistas as the only organized force that can claim responsibility for the dictator's fall. He simply agrees with high-ranking Sandinista Henry Ruiz, who says remorsefully, ""Governing has not been our best success."" Kinzer concludes that the heavy secrecy required by guerrilla warfare conditioned the Sandinistas to exercise excessive control of information and to suppress criticism once they took power. He adds that the revolutionaries' lack of training (many had never held real jobs, he says) and youthful arrogance led them into disastrous economic policies that they were too slow to reverse. Despite pre-election crackdowns--Kinzer himself was clubbed by a policeman breaking up an anti-Sandinistan rally--he credits the revolutionaries with making free elections possible, no small feat in Central America. And in a note of high adventure, he explains how he discovered a US-supplied contra camp in Honduras in 1982, when the US ambassador to Honduras claimed the US was not supporting the contras and that the rebels were based solely in Nicaragua. Alternately funny and sad, the most thorough history of Sandinistan rule to date.

Pub Date: April 4, 1991

ISBN: 0674025938

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 1991

Categories: NONFICTION