Description
Book SynopsisProvides a history of daily life on coffee plantations in central Nicaragua between 1870 and 1950 and uses that history to argue that the coffee boom impeded rather than expedited the country's transition to capitalism
Trade Review“A skilled researcher and potent polemicist, Dore is at her best when she combines archival digging with colorful interviews to prove beyond doubt that political power and patronage, not market forces or the rule of law, have long determined who holds land in Nicaragua.” -
Richard Feinberg,
Foreign Affairs“This book makes an important contribution to a growing literature on the contradictory nature of liberalism in Latin America. . . . The book is provocative, well written, and clearly argued. It will be essential reading for Latin American historians in general and those interested in gender, liberalism, and labor studies in particular.” -
Ann Zulawski,
American Historical Review“This is a real gem of a monograph. Methodologically, Dore takes the combination of ethnography and archival work to a new level.” -
Ben Fallaw,
American Ethnologist“
Myths of Modernity demonstrates why an understanding of history is important to current policy debates and why a misguided analysis of rural class relations contributed to the eventual electoral defeat of the Sandinistas.”—Carmen Diana Deere, coauthor of
Empowering Women: Land and Property Rights in Latin America“As ideal a combination of fine-grained, historically rich ethnography; astute political economy; and powerful feminist scholarship as one could possibly hope for. A standard to emulate.”—James C. Scott, Yale University
“In this uniquely researched study, constructed in dialogue with generations of members of the Diriomo community, written records, scholarly debates, and revolutionary policymakers, Elizabeth Dore shows why debt peonage and land privatization in the Nicaraguan coffee boom failed to generate capitalism. Gender is an important element in her argument and one that economic and social historians can no longer afford to ignore.”—Mary Kay Vaughan, coeditor of
The Eagle and the Virgin: Nation and Cultural Revolution in Mexico, 1920–1940“A skilled researcher and potent polemicist, Dore is at her best when she combines archival digging with colorful interviews to prove beyond doubt that political power and patronage, not market forces or the rule of law, have long determined who holds land in Nicaragua.” -- Richard Feinberg * Foreign Affairs *
“This book makes an important contribution to a growing literature on the contradictory nature of liberalism in Latin America. . . . The book is provocative, well written, and clearly argued. It will be essential reading for Latin American historians in general and those interested in gender, liberalism, and labor studies in particular.” -- Ann Zulawski * American Historical Review *
Table of Contents2. Indians under Colonialism and Postcolonialism 33
3. Patriarchal Power in the Pueblos 53
4. The Private Property Revolution 69
5. Gendered Contradictions of Liberalism: Ethnicity, Property, and Households 97
6. Debt Peonage in Diriomo: Forced Labor Revisited 110
7. Patriarchy and Peonage 149
Conclusion 164
Epilogue: History Matters—The Sandinistas’ Myth of Modernity 172
Notes 181
Glossary 213
Bibliography 217
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Who Controls the Past Controls the Future 1
1. Theories of Capitalism, Class, Gender, and Ethnicity 17
Index 239
