It is to Kinzer’s great credit that as a young freelancer he sniffed this story out. I imagine two audiences for this handsome DRCLAS edition of the book originally published in 1991-an older crowd with knowledge of the political landmarks and a college-age group that was in kindergarten when U.S.-backed Violeta Chamorro defeated Sandinista Daniel Ortega in 1990.Īt that time, Nicaragua had been a leading news story in the United States since 1978. Find a known landmark (existing or not) that was not too many twists and turns away from the ultimate destination. “Do you know where the Pepsi Cola plant used to be (before the earthquake)?” If the answer is negative try another more distant landmark if positive begin the narrative-go three blocks al lago (toward the lake), two abajo (the direction where the sun goes down), then 25 varas al lago to the green house on the left. Stephen Kinzer, New York Times Bureau Chief in Nicaragua for most of the war years, pauses in his compelling account of the war and its politics to explain the Socratic method needed to give directions in Managua-a city still not rebuilt a decade after its 1972 earthquake and bereft of street signs. Blood of Brothers: Life and War in Nicaragua By Stephen Kinzer David Rockefeller Center Series on Latin American Studies, Harvard University Press, 2007, 460 pages.
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