Culture and Customs of Nicaragua by
Throughout its history Nicaragua has been plagued by corruption, social and racial inequality, civil unrest, and foreign interference. Yet despite being the second poorest nation in South America, Nicaragua maintains a rich and vibrant culture that reflects its strong Catholic devotion, diverse indigenous roots, and overwhelming zest for life. Culture and Customs of Nicaragua introduces students and general readers to Nicaragua's unique blend of religious and traditional holidays, so numerous that the country is said to be in a constant state of celebration; its growing film industry; its many styles of dance, the popular street theatre open to all bystanders; important contributions to Spanish literature, local cuisines, architecture, social norms, and more. Readers learn what it is like to live in one of Latin America's most disillusioned countries but also discover the passionate culture that defines and sustains the Nicaraguan people.
Nicaragua in Focus by
This new series of country guides is designed for travellers and students who want to understand the wider picture and build up an overall knowledge of a country. Each In Focus guide is a lively and thought-provoking introduction to the country's people, politics and culture.
The In Focus guides will brief you on:
The history: Conquest, life as a colony, quest for independence and the building of a modern nation. How history can help explain today's society and politics.
The people: Who lives where, how they live. The different worlds of the poor and the rich; blacks, Indians and whites; Arabs and Jews; indigenous, disenfranchised and dispossessed peoples; human rights.
The culture: What to read, what to see, what to hear. Who's who in literature, music, dance, theater and cinema. Roots and rites of different religions. Folk traditions and indigenous cultural celebrations.
The politics: Who runs the country, who wants to run the country. Power and conflict between political parties,the military, guerillas and grassroots organizations. Historical ties to the U.S.
The economy: What the country produces and exports, how the economy has developed, the impact of foreign debt and free market reforms, who gains and who loses, presence and role of U.S. corporations.
Where to go, what to see: Must-see landmarks, lists of monuments and historical sites as well as the author's expert tips on what to see and do to get the most out of a short trip to the country.
Plus...
-- Facts and figures
-- Chronology
-- Practical advice
-- Nontourist travel
-- Further reading
-- Useful addresses
-- Color and b&w photos
-- Maps
Nicaragua Society and Culture Complete Report by
Need to know it all? Our all-inclusive culture report for Nicaragua will get up to speed on all aspects of culture in Nicaragua, including lifecycle, religion, women, superstitions & folklore, sports, holidays & festivals, and etiquette.
Shipwrecked Identities by
Global identity politics rest heavily on notions of ethnicity and authenticity, especially in contexts where indigenous identity becomes a basis for claims of social and economic justice. In contemporary Latin America there is a resurgence of indigenous claims for cultural and political autonomy and for the benefits of economic development. Yet these identities have often been taken for granted. In this historical ethnography, Baron Pineda traces the history of the port town of Bilwi, now known officially as Puerto Cabezas, on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua to explore the development, transformation, and function of racial categories in this region. From the English colonial period, through the Sandinista conflict of the 1980s, to the aftermath of the Contra War, Pineda shows how powerful outsiders, as well as Nicaraguans, have made efforts to influence notions about African and Black identity among the Miskito Indians, Afro-Nicaraguan Creoles, and Mestizos in the region. In the process, he provides insight into the causes and meaning of social movements and political turmoil. Shipwrecked Identities also includes important critical analysis of the role of anthropologists and other North American scholars in the Contra-Sandinista conflict, as well as the ways these scholars have defined ethnic identities in Latin America. As the indigenous people of the Mosquito Coast continue to negotiate the effects of a long history of contested ethnic and racial identity, this book takes an important step in questioning the origins, legitimacy, and consequences of such claims.
After Revolution by
Nicaragua's Sandinista revolution (1979-1990) initiated a broad program of social transformation to improve the situation of the working class and poor, women, and other non-elite groups through agrarian reform, restructured urban employment, and wide access to health care, education, and social services. This book explores how Nicaragua's least powerful citizens have fared in the years since the Sandinista revolution, as neoliberal governments have rolled back these state-supported reforms and introduced measures to promote the development of a market-driven economy.
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted throughout the 1990s, Florence Babb describes the negative consequences that have followed the return to a capitalist path, especially for women and low-income citizens. In addition, she charts the growth of women's and other social movements (neighborhood, lesbian and gay, indigenous, youth, peace, and environmental) that have taken advantage of new openings for political mobilization. Her ethnographic portraits of a low-income barrio and of women's craft cooperatives powerfully link local, cultural responses to national and global processes.
The Awakening Coast by
The indigenous and Creole inhabitants (Mosquitians of African descent) of the Mosquito Reserve in present-day Nicaragua underwent a key transformation when two Moravian missionaries arrived in 1849. Within a few short generations, the new faith became so firmly established there that eastern Nicaragua to this day remains one of the world’s strongest Moravian enclaves. The Awakening Coast offers the first comprehensive English-language selection of the writings of the multinational missionaries who established the Moravian faith among the indigenous and Afro-descendant populations through the turbulent years of the Great Awakening of 1881 to 1882, when converts flocked to the church and the mission’s membership more than doubled. The anthology tracks the intersection of religious, political, and economic forces that led to this dynamic religious shift and illustrates how the mission’s first fifty years turned a relatively obscure branch of Protestantism into the most important political and spiritual institution in the region by contextualizing the Great Awakening, Protestant evangelism, and indigenous identity during this time of dramatic social change.
Blood of Brothers by 
Cultivating Coffee by
Many scholars of Latin America have argued that the introduction of coffee forced most people to become landless proletarians toiling on large plantations. Cultivating Coffee tells a different story: small and medium-sized growers in Nicaragua were a vital part of the economy, constituting the majority of the farmers and holding most of the land.
Alongside these small commercial farmers was a group of subsistence farmers, created by the state's commitment to supplying municipal lands to communities. These subsistence growers became the workforce for their coffee-growing neighbors, providing harvest labor three months a year. Mostly illiterate, perhaps largely indigenous, they nonetheless learned the functioning of the new political and economic systems and used them to acquire individual plots of land.
Julie Charlip's Cultivating Coffee joins the growing scholarship on rural Latin America that demonstrates the complexity of the processes of transition to expanded export agriculture in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, emphasizing the agency of actors at all levels of society. It also sheds new light on the controversy surrounding landholding in Nicaragua during the Sandinista revolution.
Nicaragua Divided by
"A unique and insightful presentation of the essential writings and ideas of Chamorro (very well translated)...clearly and gracefully written. Edmisten puts current Nicaraguan politics into perspective and gives the reader a sense of the complexities of the present situation."--Charles Ameringer, Pennsylvania State University
In the late summer of 1989, a coalition of anti-Sandinistas nominated Violeta Chamorro to challenge Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega in the February 1990 elections. In this story of Chamorro's late husband, La Prensa publisher and editor Pedro Joaqu#65533;n Chamorro, and of their family, Patricia Edmisten clarifies the interrelationship of family, politics, and economics critical to an understanding of the Nicaraguan conflict and people. As a Time article has suggested, "The private pain of the Chamorro family is a microcosm of Nicaragua's national agony."
The book's fulcrum is Chamorro's 1978 assassination, an event that galvanized anti-Somoza forces and brought the Sandinista front to power. Edmisten traces the family's fortunes from the beginnings of the antagonism between the Chamorros and Somozas to the Iran-Contra affair and the present ideological division among the Chamorros, a division Edmisten finds typical of Nicaraguan families today and one that reflects the polarity in Nicaraguan society.
Into the historical narrative Edmisten weaves gracefully translated passages from Chamorro's writings and a touching selection of her interviews with Violeta Chamorro and other family members and La Prensa employees, along with photographs of the family and of historic La Prensa front pages. Although the work is carefully documented, its journalistic style gives it special appeal for the general reader.
Associate professor of education at the University of West Florida, Patricia Edmisten first visited Nicaragua in 1981 with an Oxfam-America study group.
"A unique and insightful presentation of the essential writings and ideas of Chamorro (very well translated)...clearly and gracefully written. Edmisten puts current Nicaraguan politics into perspective and gives the reader a sense of the complexities of the
Tycoon's War by
Written by a master storyteller, Tycoon's War is the remarkable account of an epic imperialist duel—a violent battle of the capitalist versus the idealist, money versus ambition, and a monumental clash of egos that resulted in the deaths of thousands of Americans. This incredible true story—impeccably researched and never before told in full—is packed with greed, intrigue, and some of the most hair-raising battle scenes ever written.
Unfinished Revolution: Daniel Ortega and Nicaragua's Struggle for Liberation by
The first full-length biography of Daniel Ortega in any language, this exhaustive account draws from a wealth of untapped sources to tell the story of Nicaragua’s continuing struggle for liberation through the prism of the Revolution’s most emblematic yet enigmatic hero. It traces Ortega’s life from his childhood in Nicaragua’s mountainous mining region, where his parents instilled in him a hatred of Yankee imperialism, through a current presidential administration that has many of the earmarks of the authoritarianism he opposed in others. In between, it shows him as a teenager caught up in political agitaation, a political prisoner locked in a jail cell for seven years, a strategist and fighter of the Revolution, a leader in the new republic, and a behind-the-scenes powerbroker plotting his own return to power. The portrait that emerges is of a man who wants the best for his countryand often gets ityet also one prone to making questionable compromises in pursuit of his lofty ambitions.
The Regime of Anastasio Somoza, 1936-1956 by
To many observers, Anastasio Somoza, who ruled Nicaragua from 1936 until his assassination in 1956, personified the worst features of a dictator. While not dismissing these characteristics, Knut Walter argues that the regime was in fact more notable for its achievement of stability, economic growth, and state building than for its personalistic and dictatorial features. Using a wide range of sources in Nicaraguan archives, Walter focuses on institutional and structural developments to explain how Somoza gained and consolidated power. According to Walter, Somoza preferred to resolve conflicts by political means rather than by outright coercion. Specifically, he built his government on agreements negotiated with the country's principal political actors, labor groups, and business organizations. Nicaragua's two traditional parties, one conservative and the other liberal, were included in elections, thus giving the appearance of political pluralism. Partly as a result, the opposition was forced to become increasingly radical, says Walter; eventually, in 1979, Nicaragua produced the only successful revolution in Central America and the first in all of Latin America since Cuba's.
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News Sites
"Censorship, intimidation and threats... President Daniel Ortega’s reelection in November 2016 for a third consecutive term was accompanied by mistreatment of Nicaraguan journalists, especially those with independent or opposition media outlets. Journalism as a whole is stigmatized, and journalists are often the targets of harassment campaigns, arbitrary arrest and death threats. At demonstrations, reporters are treated as participants and are often physically attacked. Nicaragua’s constitution tolerates only “constructive” criticism – a vague concept that allows the government to censor and restrict freedom of information." (Reporters Without Borders)
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