The New Nicaragua: Lessons in Development, Democracy, and Nation-Building for the United States

An insider's look at the changes going on in Nicaragua―the internal political maneuvering of Daniel Ortega, the responses by the United States, and the success of recent American pro-democracy civil society efforts there.

At the time of Ortega's return to the presidency, attorney and award-winning author Steven Hendrix was on the ground in Nicaragua working for the U.S. Agency for International Development. The New Nicaragua: Lessons in Development, Democracy, and Nation-Building for the United States is Hendrix's eyewitness account of the changes going on there.

What Hendrix found in the new Nicaragua is a decidedly mixed bag: a presidential campaign marked by dirty tricks and backroom deals, yet an election held under the first neutral comprehensive observation ever in the developing world; an overt effort to appease the United States even while attempting to undermine U.S. policy in the region. Yet despite this, Hendrix saw U.S. pro-democracy, civil society efforts succeed, disproving the many skeptics who doubt that nation-building is even possible.