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Sandino: una biografia politica. By VOLKER WUNDERICH. Translated by Juan Mario Castellanos. Managua: Nueva Nicaragua, I995. Photographs. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. 367 pp. Paper.
While the Frente Sandinista in Nicaragua remains mired in profound crises of legitimacy and identity, the symbol of Sandino continues to carry enormous resonance across the country, and not just among party stalwarts. Professional academics, both native and foreign, also continue to find in this tragic and heroic figure much of interest and value, judging from the recent bumper crop in the field of Sandino studies (at least seven booklength works since I993: two books by Nicaraguans [Alejandro Bendana and Oscar-Rene Vargas], two by Europeans [Winderich and Michelle Dospital], and three United States dissertations [Michael Schroeder, Richard Grossman, and David Brooks]).
Winderich's work stands among the best of these. This is the German historian's second book on Sandino (the first focused on the Atlantic Coast), and a very fine piece of scholarship that should prove of interest to specialists and general readers alike. In some ways a conventional biography-following the thread of an individual's life...