about 14 families.
Some 22 percent has been transferred to poor farmers under a land reform program launched in 1980 a Christian Democratic mili- tary junta. But the program has stirred the ire of property owners and become a target of Marx-
"The old United Provinces of Central America encompassed Gua- temala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. But Belize and Panama are also regarded as Central American states.
&-Leninist insurgents. Hence, Jose Duarte's ci- vilian government...
n proudly called him- self a Sandinista. As the despised National Guard collapsed on the 19th, and some 300 muchachos in fatigues and berets marched into Managua, the poor and privileged alike rejoiced with laughter and tears. In sublime catharsis, a crowd tore down an equestrian statue of Anastasia Somoza Garcia, the first of three Somozas to call himself el presidente.
Businessmen went on the air to pledge support for the Revolution. Jimmy Carter's envoy, William Bowdler, joined a victory parade...
As an episode in Soviet-American global competition, the conflict in Nicaragua has served to illuminate a recurring problem in American governance: the difficulty of getting Capitol Hill and the White House together on a coherent U.S. foreign policy. Since the Vietnam debacle, the zigzags in U.S. policy overseas have intensified. The War Powers Act (1973) and Congress's initial refusal to fund anti-Communist guerrillas in Angola (1976) were just two early symptoms of the same distrust that led...
the Spanish. Moreover, the mountains hm-ited trade, and slash-md-burn farming ruined "millions of acres of arable land."
Woodward's is the most lucid all- round history of the region in English. Useful surveys include Robert C. West and John l? Augelli's Middle America: Its Lands and Peoples (Prentice-Hall, 1976) and Franklin D. Parker's Central American Republics (Oxford, 1964). Cornell's Walter LaFeber, in Inevitable Revolutions: The United States in Central America (Norton, 1984), a...
Lyn Ragsdale, in The Journal of Poli- tics (Aug. 1987), Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, Fla. 32611.
Presidents frequently seek to sway the public with major speeches broad- cast during prime time on network television. But do these broadcasts permanently affect public attitudes toward major issues?
Ragsdale, a political scientist at the University of Arizona, studied the 93 prime-time speeches (including State of the Union messages but ex- cluding inaugural addresses) given Lyndon Johnson, Richard...
John Herbers, in Gouern-ing (Oct. 19871, 1414 22nd St. N.W., Washing-ton, D.C. 20037.
One of the goals of the Reagan administration has been establishing "the new federalismH-transferring control of many federal programs to the states. Herbers, a visiting professor of politics at Princeton, argues that although some proposed federal cutbacks have been blocked, the conse- quences of reducing federal spending and regulation have been "more far-reaching than almost anyone envisioned."
Many...
Washington. Wisconsin requires automatic deductions of child- support payments from the wages of fathers who desert their children on welfare, thus becoming a state that goes "far beyond federal requirements in holding parents responsible for their children until age 18."
Herbers does not expect further cutbacks in federal aid to states and cities. He predicts that rather than dictating local policy, Washington will continue to "build its programs around the innovations of the states."
"What...
Susan Strange, in International Organization (Autumn lG7), 55 Hayward St., &rnbridge, Mas. 02142.
One of the persistent myths of our time says Strange, a professor of international relations at the London School of Ekonomics, is that America has passed her prime as a great power. Faced with a shrinking share of world trade, a dwindling industrial base, and increasingly fractious allies, America, many scholars conclude, like Britain before it, must face an impe- rial sunset.
But America, Strange...
Jock A. Finlayson and David G. Haglund, in Sur-
vival (Sept.-Oct. 1987), International Institute
for Strategic Studies, 23 Tavistock St., London
WC2E 7NQ, United Kingdom.
A dominant theme of international politics in the late 1970s and early 1980s was that America would be irrevocably drawn into a "resource war" with the Soviet Union, as both sides sought to assure themselves access to essential raw materials. As a presidential candidate in 1980, Ronald Reagan argued that Western...
Patrick Glynn, in The National Interest (Fall 19871, 1627 Connecticut Ave. N.W., Washing-ton, D.C. 20009.
The present Western preoccupation with arms control, argues Glynn, as- sistant to the director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, rests on two faulty assumptions: that arms races cause wars and that wars happen "accidentally."
Glynn believes these false lessons derive from the same source: World War I revisionist historians. "The real dividing line in modem reflection...