The Sandino Affair by Neill MacaulayReview by: David D. BurksThe American Historical Review, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Apr., 1968), pp. 1271-1272Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Historical AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1847583 .

Accessed: 24/06/2014 22:50

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

.

Oxford University Press and American Historical Association are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize,preserve and extend access to The American Historical Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 22:50:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

Americas I27I

sionally elected President (I934-I937), dictator (I937-I945), and his final dramatic return as popularly elected President (I95I-I954) is clearly told.

Perhaps conscious of the ambitious task he set himself-one that virtually no Brazilian historian has even attempted-the author has avoided analyzing the economic and social forces or the main political movements at work during the quarter century of Brazilian history so inextricably intertwined with Vargas' career. Aside from the modest "Resume" at the end of this volume, there is almost no speculation about Vargas' personality, posing such questions, for example, as how he developed his extraordinary ability to play off groups and individuals against one another.

Dulles' biography of Vargas has appeared at the last moment appropriate for a study of this kind. A number of younger historians are now, or have recently been, at work in the unpublished documents in Brazil, including the all-important Vargas archive not consulted by Dulles, and they will soon begin to produce their monographs on special aspects of the Vargas era. Furthermore, we have recently been presented with important additions to the printed sources, especially the multivolume series by Helio Silva that was evidently available to Dulles only in partial manuscript. In sum, Dulles has accomplished his modest but admirable purpose of providing a readable narrative of the central events in Brazilian political history from 1930 to 1954.

It is no small compliment to say that his political profile of Vargas will be revised as historians deepen our knowledge and understanding of the life and times of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating politicians. University of Wisconsin THOMAs E. SKIDMORE

THE SANDINO AFFAIR. By Neill Macaulay. (Chicago: Quadrangle Books. I967. PP. 319- $6.95.)

FEW have better credentials as an expert on Latin American guerrillas than author Macaulay who, after fighting as one under Castro, turned to studying them as a historian. He has put his expertise to good account in this volume.

Sandino won the war against US intervention (I928-I933) although he lost many engagements and his casualty rate was several times that of the enemy. His tactics were the hit-and-run attack and the V ambush. He seldom engaged in battle unless he enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in numbers. The principal innovation of the war was the US Marines' use of airplanes for tactical support: the first recorded dive-bombing in history took place in Nicaragua in 1927. In 1933 the last of the marines sailed away, and Sandino, more a nationalist than a reformer, came to terms with the government only to be killed by order of Somoza.

This is essentially a military history. Available sources permit the author to say much less about Sandino as social reformer than as guerrilla chief. An unlettered man who was fully occupied by the exigencies of battle, Sandino had a belief in communalism, but was not a Communist.

Macaulay briefly traces the present guerrilla tradition in the Caribbean and Central American countries back to Sandino, whose ideas influenced the Carib- bean Legion of the I940's and I950's and were passed on to Castro in Mexico by

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 22:50:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

1272 Reviews of Books Bayo. Macaulay states that Sandino's failure to destroy the National Guard gave Castro an object lesson in the need to dismantle the Batista military machine. Undoubtedly Sandino's experience was a factor, but Castro said publicly in I959 that the overthrow of Arbenz by the Guatemalan Army had convinced him of the need to act in Cuba. Macaulay correctly assesses Sandino's image as still important; a recent press report states that Turcios Lima, the now-deceased Guatemalan guerrilla commander, regarded Sandino rather than Castro as his alter ego.

Macaulay's study is based upon thorough research in largely unused sources. He explains clearly and in detail the development and nature of Sandino's tech- niques. Though lacking in polish in a few places, the book is well balanced and well written. Indiana University DAVID D. BuRKs

THE VENEZUELAN DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION: A PROFILE OF THE REGIME OF ROMULO BETANCOURT. By Robert I. Alexander. (New Brunswick, N. J.: Rutgers University Press. I964. PP. Xiii, 345. $9.oo.)

REVOLUTION in Latin America, maintains Professor Alexander, is inevitable. The basic question is that of its leadership: will it be Leftist, totalitarian, or democratic? Depending on the answer to that question would be the identity of its leader- Fidel Castro or, by implication, former President Romulo Betancourt of Venezuela. This analysis somewhat oversimplifies the thesis of this highly useful book on recent Venezuelan politics, but the query and the answer provide the raison d'ttre for writing it in the first place.

Reviewing a book written four years previously presents elements of awkward- ness. It is difficult for a reviewer to move himself back to a stance approximately simultaneous with that of the author of the book. Essentially, this volume ends with the close of Betancourt's administration. The natural, but unfair, reaction would be to view it in the light of what has happened since.

When it was written, this book presented the best factual account of the Betancourt administration and its antecedents. So far as the factual review is concerned, the verdict could still stand; interpretation and evaluation might, however, be slightly altered in the light of four years' perspective.

The author provides his stage setting rather briefly. Five short chapters deal with such matters as the country and its population, the first Accion Democrdtica administration (I945-I948), the P6rez Jimenez dictatorship, and the provisional regime following it. Most of the work is then devoted to a detailed discussion of the years of Betancourt's elected presidency: the interplay of political parties, civic liberties, economic problems and policies (including agrarian reform, in- dustrialization, petroleum policy, and organized labor), education, and other social reforms and investments. Nothing of consequence is omitted, and the study contains a wealth of statistical material, perhaps almost too much. Two concluding chapters assess the revolution's significance.

Quite apart from a long and wide acquaintance with the whole of Latin America, Alexander based this study on a number of research visits to Venezuela, a thoroughgoing consultation of primary sources, interviews, and correspondence

This content downloaded from 185.2.32.36 on Tue, 24 Jun 2014 22:50:01 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions