Heritage of the Conquistadors: Ruling Classes in Central America from Conquest to the Sandinistas

In The Heritage of the Conquistadors Samuel Z. Stone demonstrates that the ruling families of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador are rooted in a common ancestry. This crossbreeding, so to speak, often confuses the outside world's un-derstanding of such developments as the Salvadoran insurgency, the fall of Somoza, and the rise of the Sandinistas.

Samuel Z. Stone, a citizen of Costa Rica, is the author of the prize-winning La Dinastia de los conquistadores: La Crisis del Poder en la Costa Rica Contemporanea (1975) and other works.