Reseñas proporcionadas por Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In Colburn's view, autarchic development strategies cannot be meshed with socioeconomic improvements in small countries without unpleasant tradeoffs. In Nicaragua, the engines of agricultural wealth are cotton, coffee, rice, and sugar-all export crops. To sustain their vitality and capacity to generate foreign exchange, the Sandinistas have had to backpedal on their revolutionary goals, leaving small domestic food producers and agricultural wage laborers with declining real incomes, at least for the first four years of the post revolutionary regime. Something is missing in this brief review, however: politics. Economic hardship among those for whom the revolution was fought is seldom examined as to its political consequences. Colburn's balance sheet suggests imminent collapse of the revolution, a conclusion he seems not to share. Nevertheless, this is an important contribution to the counterpoint literature in the dependency debate. Recommended for all upper-division and graduate collections.-E.M. Dew, Fairfield University

Booklist Review

As an example of the problems of putting progressive social theories into practice, this volume studies the near economic collapse in Nicaragua after the Sandinista revolution. (Ag 86)