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Héctor Perla , Jr. , Sandinista Nicaragua's Resistance to US Coercion: Revolutionary Deterrence in Asymmetric Conflict (Cambridge and New York : Cambridge University Press , 2017), pp. xxi + 241, £75.00 hb.
Reviews
This highly original and thought-provoking work provides a fresh perspective on the decade-long conflict between the United States and Nicaragua's Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN). Héctor Perla argues that Ronald Reagan's policy of 'rollback' in Nicaragua was defeated thanks to the Sandinistas' mobilisation of a transnational social movement, a movement which strengthened public opposition to intervention within the United States. The book contributes to existing scholarship on solidarity with Central America in the United States, but Perla's approach is unique because he emphasises the decisive, foundational role played by Central Americans in the development of the solidarity movement.
Perla's choice of targets and questions is astute. He notes that Latin Americanists' view of the Sandinista Revolution is dominated by the Sandinistas' electoral loss in 1990, and that post-1990 scholarship has sought to explain the Sandinistas' failure. Within international relations (IR), in contrast, the Contra War is considered as a 'loss' for Reagan. Perla sites his work firmly within the latter field, arguing that the US effort in Nicaragua had been fully defeated, militarily and politically, by the end of the Reagan presidency. However, he argues that IR scholars have failed to accurately explain Reagan's defeat, because they do not recognise the power that can be wielded by poor, marginalised states in asymmetric conflicts. This blind spot is further exacerbated by IR scholars' failure to account for Latin...