Walter LaFeber

Inevitable Revolutions

Second Edition, Revised and Expanded

Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Costa Rica. Five small countries, and seemingly so remote. Yet even before teh Iran-Contra debacle, no part of the world was more vital to teh United States, and no part more in need of understanding by Americans.

The first edition of Inevitable Revolutions, published ten years ago, was widely hailed and quickly became a bestseller. Now, completely revised and updated—one-third of its contents are entirely new—Walter LaFeber brings to a new generation of readers the story, in Arthur Schlesinger's words, "of a long and squalid history of U.S. exploitation and intervention combined with neglect—a history whose consequences we are reaping today."

"This, the second edition of Walter LaFeber's Inevitable Revolutions, is even more valuable than the first, for it brings us up to date and provides a penetrating and scathing analysis of the cynical debacle that was the Reagan-Bush Central American policy." —Wayne Smith, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

"The best book on Central America in over 100 years. . . . A concise and compelling story." —Murat Williams, former ambassador to El Salvador

"The best historical synthesis in the last century." —Alfred Stepan, New York Times Book Review