The United States Honduras And The Crisis In Central America

Prior to the 1980s Honduras was an obscure backwater, of little public or policy concern in the United States. With the advent of the Reagan administration, however, Hondurans found themselves at the center of the US-Central American imbroglio, a launching pad for the administration's contra war against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua and for counterinsurgency operations against guerrillas in El Salvador. Placing events in the context of Honduran history, the authors provide penetrating insights into the causes of revolution in Central America and the sources of stability that enabled Honduras to escape the civil strife that consumed its neighbors. At the same time, the work offers a fascinating account of Honduran domestic politics and of the personalities, motives, and maneuvers of policymakers on both sides of the U.S.-Honduras relationship—too often a tale of intrigue, violence, and corruption.

A clear and balanced presentation of the dilemmas associated with each of the four nations. A skillful cultural framework is provided in the first chapter, which serves as an overview. Foreign Affairs A fine study. Anderson's reputation as a scholar and a Latin Americanist will be enhanced when this study has time to make its imprint. American Political Science Review This new volume provides an up-to-date survey of the Central American states involved in the current conflict. While several studies of the individual countries in the region have appeared, there have been no recent attempts at a synthesis of the problems of the area. Politics in Central America fills this gap, analyzing the roots of the current crisis and suggesting solutions to the problems of the region. The author's chief assertion is that the roots of the problems in Central America are not to be found in the East-West struggle but in the competition within each country for control of the scarce natural resources. This crisis in Central America calls for drastic and economic changes. The key question, Anderson claims, is whether or not these changes can be brought about within a democratic framework.

Since 1979, United States policy in Central America has been based on an assumption that revolutionary movements led by Marxists must represent a serious threat to U.S. interests and security. On this point, the difference between liberals and conservatives is merely one of emphasis or accent. Such an assumption is not shared by most governments in Western Europe and Latin America. In part, these countries base their positions on their understanding of the originas of the present crisis—that is, the history, both remote and recent, of Central America. (Original publication 6/85)

This is the first interpretive history of Central America by a Central American historian to be published in English. Anyone with an interest in current events in the region will find here an insightful and well-written guide to the history of its five national states—Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. Traces of a common past invite us to make generalizations about the region, even to posit the idea of a Central American nation. But, as Hector Perez-Brignoli shows us, we can learn more from a comparative approach that establishes both the points of convergence and the separate paths taken by the five different countries of Central America. The author offers a concise overview of the region's history from the sixteenth century to the present, beginning with human and cultural geography in the first chapter and ending with the present crisis in the last. He deals with the fundamental themes and problems of the area: the characteristics of the colonial heritage, independence and the crisis of the Federal Republic, the formation of nation-states during the nineteenth century, and the development of export agriculture based on coffee and bananas. The narrative moves finally into the twentieth century to look at the growing impoverishment that multiplies inequalities and leads to the shipwreck of liberal democracy. The case of Costa Rica, exceptional in more ways than one, receives special attention.

Lemco examines Canada's sizable interest in Central America and helps fill a gap in the literature on Canada's foreign policy. The book offers a rare look at not only Canada's Central American policy goals but how these goals relate to Canadian-U.S. relations and Latin American politics.