Topics in Latin America:
Contemporary Central America

Bibliography

Whose truth? The Testimonial or the Scholar?

I strongly recommend that you consult Ralph Lee Woodward, Jr., Central America: A Nation Divided, Hector Pérez Brignoli, A Brief History of Central America or Frederick Stirton Weaver, Inside the Volcano: The History and Political Economy of Central America. For the nineteenth century, in particular, see Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Weak foundations : the economy of El Salvador in the nineteenth century and Lowell Gudmundson and Héctor Lindo-Fuentes, Central America, 1821-1871 : liberalism before liberal reform. These books have been placed on OPEN RESERVE for the semester, and should prove useful starting points for bibliographic searches.

For those who read Spanish, there is a new 6-volume history of Central America that provides additional background and bibliographies, Edelberto Torres Rivas, ed., Historia General de Centroamérica.

In addition to consulting journals on Latin American History (Hispanic America Historical Review, The Journal of Latin American Studies, Latin American Research Review), students with Spanish might also consider reading Central American journals (Mesoamérica, Estudios Centroamericanos) and on-line versions of regional newspapers such as Siglo Ventiuno (Guatemala), La Prensa (Honduras), etc. For those with no Spanish, there are English-language weeklies of varying quality available on the internet and through e-mail subscription that provide additional information.

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Required Text

Weaver, Frederick Stirton, Inside the volcano : the history and political economy of Central America Boulder : Westview Press, 1994.

Required Books

Asturias, Miguel Angel (1997) Guatemalan Sociology (originally published as the Problem of the Indian) Arizona State U.

Burgos-Debray, Elizabeth, ed. (1984) I, Rigoberta Menchú: An Indian Woman in Guatemala, Verso Press

Dalton, Roque (1988) Miguel Marmol Kathleen Ross (Translator),Richard Schaaf (Translator) Curbstone Press, 1988

Gould, Jeffrey L. (1988) To Die in this Way: Nicaraguan Indians & the Myth of Mestizaje, 1880-1965. Durham, NC: Duke U. Press, 1988.

Levenson-Estrada, Deborah (1994). Trade unionists against terror : Guatemala City, 1954-1985, Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press.

Schlesinger, Stephen E.and Stephen Kinzer (1982; 1999rev) Bitter Fruit: The Story of the American Coup in Guatemala. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press

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Additional Readings

Adams, Richard N., "Guatemalan Ladinization and History," The Americas, April 1994, 526-543.

Berryman, Philip, Church & Revolution, NACLA, March/April 1997, www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/40/023.html

Berger, Susan A. (1997), "Environmentalism in Guatemala: When Fish Have Ears," Latin American Research Review, 32 (1997): 2, 99-116.

Booth, John,(1991)."Socioeconomic & Political Roots of National Revolts in Central America" Latin American Research Review 33-73.

Carmack, Robert M. "State and Community in 19th. Century Guatemala: The Momostenango Case," in Smith, Guatemalan Indians & the State, 1540-1988, p. 117-135.

Chomsky, Aviva "Laborers and Smallholders in Costa Rica's Mining Communities, 1900-1940," in Lauria-Santiago & Chomsky, eds., pp. 169-195.

Collin, Richard H. (1990) Theodore Roosevelt's Caribbean: The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context. Baton Rouge, LSU Press, pp. 3-94, 127-338

Dosal, Paul J. (1988) "The political economy of Guatemalan industrialization, 1871-1948: the career of Carlos F. Novella," Hispanic American Historical Review, 68:2, May 1988, p. 322-357

Ebel, Roland H. (1992), "When Indians Take Power; Conflict & Consensus in San Juan ostuncalco," in Carmack, Harvest of Violence, 174-191.

Gudmundson, Lowell (1989) "Peasant, farmer, proletarian: class formation in a smallholder coffee economy, 1850-1950," Hispanic American Historical Review, 69:2, May 1989, p. 221-257

Hinshaw, Robert E. (1992) "Tourist Town Amid the Violence: Panajachel" in Carmack, Harvest of Violence, p. 195-205.

Kincaid, David (1987). "Peasants into Rebels: community and class in rural El Salvador." Comparative Studies in Society and History 29(3): 466-494.

Lauria-Santiago, Aldo, ""That a Poor Man Be Industrious": Coffee, Community and Agrarian Capitalism in the Transformation of El Salvador's Ladino Peasantry, 1850-1900," in Lauria-Santiago and Chomsky, eds., p. 25-51.

Levenson-Estrada, Deborah, "The Loneliness of working-class feminism: women in the "male world"of labor unions, Guatemala City, 1970s," in The Gendered worlds of Latin American women workers: from household and factory to the union hall and ballot box. Durhan, NC: Duke U. Press, 1998, 208-231.

McCreery, David. "Coffee and Class: The Structure of Development in Liberal Guatemala." Hispanic American Historical Review 56, no. 3 (1976): 438-60.

McCreery, David, "State Power, Indigenous Communities, and Land in Nineteenth-Century Guatemala, 1820-1920," in Smith, Guatemalan Indians & the State, 1540-1988, 95-116

Montgomery, Tommie Sue. "Getting to peace in El Salvador: the roles of the United Nations Secretariat and ONUSAL," Journal of Interamerican Studies, World Affairs, 37:4, Winter 1995, p. 139-172,

Paige, Jeffery M. (1997) Coffee and power : revolution and the rise of democracy in Central America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Pérez Brignoli, Héctor. "Indians, communists, and peasants: the 1932 rebellion in El Salvador., in Coffee, society, and power in Latin America Edited by William Roseberry, Lowell Gudmundson, and Mario Samper Kutschback. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1995, p. 232-261.

Smith, Carol A. (1992) "Destruction of the Material Bases for Indian Culture: Economic Chagnes in Totonicapán" in Carmack, Harvest of Violence: The maya Indians and the Guatemalan State Norman: U. of Oklahoma Press, p. 206-231.

Smith, Carol A. ed (1990). Guatemalan Indians and the State, 1540-1988, Austin: University of Texas Press

Smith, Carol A. (1995) "Race-Class-Gender Ideology in Guatemala: Modern and Anti-Modern Forms," Comparative Studies in Society & History 37:4, 723-249.

Stoll, David (1992) "Evangelicals, Guerrillas, and the Army: The Ixil Triangle Under Ríos Montt," in Carmack, Harvest of Violence, p. 90-116.

Watanabe, John, (2000)

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Discussion Leader Readings

Adams, Richard N. (1994) "Guatemalan Ladinization and History," The Americas April 1994, 527-543.

Euraque, Dario, "The Banana Enclave, Nationalism and Mestizaje in Honduras, 1910s-1930s," in Lauria-Santiago and Chomsky, eds., pp. 151-168.

Gleijeses, Piero (1991), Shattered Hopes: The Guatemalan Revolution and the U.S., 1944-1954 Cambridge, MA: Harvard U. Press.

Handy, Jim (1994) Revolution in the Countryside: Rural Conflict & Agrarian Reform in Guatemala, 1944-1954 Chapel Hill: Duke U. Press.

Harlow, Barbara. (1991) "Testimonio and survival: Roque Dalton's Miguel Marmol." Latin American Perspectives 18:4, Fall 1991, p. 9-21

Himelblau, Jack. The sociopolitical views of Miguel Angel Asturias, 1920-1930 Hispania, 61, sept. 1977, p. 61-80.

Hodges, Donald C. (1986). Intellectual Foundations of the Nicaraguan Revolution, Austin: University of Texas Press.

Lancaster, Roger (1993) Life is hard : machismo, danger, and the intimacy of power in Nicaragua : Berkeley : University of California Press.

Paige, Jeffery M. (1997) Coffee and power : revolution and the rise of democracy in Central America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press

Smith, Carol A (1990) "Origins of the National Question in Guatemala; A Hypothesis" in Smith, Guatemalan Indians & the State, 1540-1988, p. 72-95.

Stoll, David (1999) Rigoberta Menchú and the Story of All Poor Guatemalans (Westview Press9)

Watanabe, John M. (1990), "Enduring Yet Ineffable Community in the Western Periphery of Guatemala," in Smith, Guatemalan Indians & the State, 1540-1988, p. 183-204.

Woodward, Ralph Lee (1990), Changes in the Nineteenth Century Guatemalan State & Its Indian Policies," in Smith, Guatemalan Indians & the State, 1540-1988, p. 52-71.

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