Yankee Sandinistas - Softcover

Ron Ridenour

Softcover

ISBN 10: 091530662X ISBN 13: 9780915306626

Publisher: Curbstone Press, 1986

Synopsis

Book by Ron Ridenour

About this title

From Publishers Weekly

A freelance journalist and peace activist, Ridenour here interviews in depth 11 Americans who live and work in Nicaragua as well as includes brief conversations with the American members of "international" work brigades. Politically the subjects range from dedicated Marxists and other leftists to a Baptist missionary, a nun and a registered Republican who says "the U.S. ought to be sending help, trading. That's the only way to make friends." The Americans talk about their desire to raise the standard of living and their disagreements with U.S. foreign policy. One woman maintains that she is in Nicaragua because she has more ability to make changes than at home. ("The United States is a giant plate of jello. You can touch it, but you can't put a mark on it. It springs right back.") A man's experiences running a tractor repair school illustrate the clash of cultures. "One of our problems is how to transform something, writing down on paper what work we are gonna be doing, and then doing it. Like a check list for servicing a machine, keeping a record of work in progress. That whole concept is very alien to them." An illuminating, helpful look at day-to-day life in Nicaragua.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

The people interviewed (some of whom also appeared in Melissa Everett's Bearing Witness, Building Bridges , LJ 2/15/86), portray the Nicaraguans as wanting to be left to solve their own problems instead of being turned into pawns of the East/West confrontation. They question the U.S. government's motives in supporting a war which eats up 40 percent of their scarce budget, thus leaving them open to infiltration by Cubans and Russians. A similar book of interviews with anti-Sandinistas is Dieter Eich and Carlos Ricon's The Contras ( LJ 11/1/85). These books are meant to tell the American public what our involvement in Central America has meant to the common people; general collections should own at least one. Louise Leonard, Univ. of Florida Lib., Gainesville
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Curbstone Press
• Publication date: 1986
• ISBN 10: 091530662X
• ISBN 13: 9780915306626
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 175