This volume is a valuable re-assessment of the Nicaraguan Revolution by a Marxist historian of Latin American political history. It shows that the FSLN (‘the Sandinistas’), with politics principally shaped by Soviet and Cuban Communism, never had a commitment to genuine democracy either within the revolutionary movement or within society at large; that the FSLN’s lack of commitment to democracy was a key factor in the way that revolution was betrayed from the 1970s to the 1990s; and that the FSLN’s lack of rank-and-file democracy left all decision-making to the National Directorate and ultimately placed that power in the hands of Daniel Ortega. Pursuing his narrative into the present, La Botz shows that, once their would-be bureaucratic ruling class project was defeated, Ortega and the FSLN leadership turned to an alliance with the capitalist class.

Uncountable books have been written on the Nicaraguan revolution in 1979, due to the fascination connected with the idea of revolution in general and with its realization in Nicaragua in particular. This book retells the story of the Nicaraguan revolution with the words of women, aiming to show how a high level of transformative energy was accumulated in the Nicaraguan society over time, based on a common utopian vision of a better future for all. The energetic upheaval can be analyzed as a Dionysian ritual. However, the book also follows up on the Apollonian aftermath of the revolution. Martina Handler is a social scientist and a graduate of the Master Program in Peace, Development, Security and International Conflict Transformation in Innsbruck, Austria.

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.

In this uniquely wide-ranging book, David Craven investigates the extraordinary impact of three Latin American revolutions on the visual arts and on cultural policy. The three great upheavals - in Mexico (1910-40), in Cuba (1959-89), and in Nicaragua (1979-90) - were defining moments in twentieth-century life in the Americas. Craven discusses the structural logic of each movement's artistic project - by whom, how, and for whom artworks were produced -- and assesses their legacies. In each case, he demonstrates how the consequences of the revolution reverberated in the arts and cultures far beyond national borders. The book not only examines specific artworks originating from each revolution's attempt to deal with the challenge of 'socializing the arts,' but also the engagement of the working classes in Mexico, Cuba, and Nicaragua with a tradition of the fine arts made newly accessible through social transformation. Craven considers how each revolution dealt with the pressing problem of creating a 'dialogical art' -- one that reconfigures the existing artistic resource rather than one that just reproduces a populist art to keep things as they were. In addition, the author charts the impact on the revolutionary processes of theories of art and education, articulated by such thinkers as John Dewey and Paulo Freire. The book provides a fascinating new view of the Latin American revolutionaries -- from artists to political leaders -- who defined art as a fundamental force for the transformation of society and who bequeathed new ways of thinking about the relations among art, ideology, and class, within a revolutionary process.

Sandinista Narratives is an analysis of the role of agency in the Nicaraguan Revolution and its aftermath. Jean-Pierre Reed argues that the insurrection in Nicaragua was shaped by political contingency, action-specific subjectivity, and popular culture. He also examines how Sandinista ideology contributed to state-building in Nicaragua while tracing the role of post-revolutionary Sandinismo as a political identity.

Twentieth Century Guerrilla Movements in Latin America: A Primary Source History collects political writings on human rights, social injustice, class struggle, anti-imperialism, national liberation, and many other topics penned by urban and rural guerrilla movements. In the second half of the twentieth century, Latin America experienced a mass wave of armed revolutionary movements determined to overthrow oppressive regimes and eliminate economic exploitation and social injustices. After years of civil resistance, and having exhausted all peaceful avenues, thousands of working-class people, peasants, professions, intellectuals, clergymen, students, and teachers formed dozens of guerrilla movements. Fernando Herrera Calderón presents important political writings, some translated into English here for the first time, that serve to counteract the government propaganda that often overshadowed the intellectual side of revolutionary endeavors. These texts come from Latin American countries such as Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Nicaragua, and many more. The book will be indispensable to anyone teaching or studying revolutions in modern Latin American history.

Life Stories of the Nicaraguan Revolution delineates the human dimension of the Nicaraguan conflict, revealing what it is like to live in Nicaragua today. Through conversations with Denis Heyck, twenty Nicaraguans--powerful and powerless, rich and poor, government and oppostion, educated and illiterate--tell their fascinating stories. What emerges is the picture of a shattered society, capturing twin features of Nicaragua's revolutionary experience: idealism and suffering.

Space tourism has become extremely significant in recent times, especially in pursuance of the new space race among corporate giants such as Virgin Galactic, Blue Origin and SpaceX. Each of these corporate giants has already booked thousands of space enthusiasts for a journey to outer space. Given this wide interest of private space players, space tourists as well as countries in space tourism, it is imperative to understand the legal issues involved in space tourism. This book presents important discussions in the domain of space tourism and its legal implications across the globe. It attempts to find solutions to various challenges like safety and security in space, status of space tourists during emergencies, liability aspects, environmental protection, etc., faced during the recent spurt of space tourism. It also discusses the role of insurance in space tourism, various crimes possible in outer space with the rise of space tourism, the mechanisms for adjudication of such crimes, the aspect of quarantining space tourists, the need to preserve the natural and cultural heritage of space and other topics, besides examining the contemporary legal and policy-oriented issues of privatisation of space. A must read for scholars and researchers of law, space science, history and other fields who are interested in the space race and outer space law, this book will also be of interest to those exploring space studies, political studies, environmental studies and political economy. It will be useful for policymakers, bureaucrats, think tanks as well as interested general readers looking for fresh perspectives on the future of space

This edited volume studies the relationship between big business and the Latin American dictatorial regimes during the Cold War. The first section provides a general background about the contemporary history of business corporations and dictatorships in the twentieth century at the international level. The second section comprises chapters that analyze five national cases (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay and Peru), as well as a comparative analysis of the banking sector in the Southern Cone (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay). The third section presents six case studies of large companies in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia and Central America. This book is crucial reading because it provides the first comprehensive analysis of a key yet understudied topic in Cold War history in Latin America.

Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, many scholars have sought to explain the collapse of communism. Yet, more than two decades on, communist regimes continue to rule in a diverse set of countries including China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam. In a unique study of fourteen countries, Steven Saxonberg explores the reasons for the survival of some communist regimes while others fell. He also shows why the process of collapse differed among communist-led regimes in Europe, Africa, and Latin America. Based on the analysis of the different processes of collapse that has already taken place, and taking into account the special characteristics of the remaining communist regimes, Transitions and Non-Transitions from Communism discusses the future prospects for the survival of the regimes in China, Cuba, North Korea, and Vietnam.