Choice 评论
Using excerpts from short stories, political historian Stone attempts to show that national character and economic history help explain how authoritarian and democratic regimes have sprung up side-by-side in five Central American countries. The author highlights the theme of resentment on the part of Indian, mestizo, and black workers toward the elites as an important feature of national identity--one that expresses the desire of excluded groups to participate in the political process. Resentment is strongest in the authoritarian north, Guatemala and El Salvador, and decreases, along with the indigenous presence, southward toward democratic Costa Rica, with Honduras and Nicaragua occupying an intermediate zone. He describes how northern "nobility" have historically engaged in export agriculture and have hand-picked political and military leaders to do their bidding; southern elites held smaller estates that they worked themselves and entered into public service. According to Stone, the latters' paternalistic system receives less resentful treatment in popular stories than does the harsher northern system. Stone's thesis is interesting, but unfortunately the excerpts are too brief and the analysis too thin to make the connection between resentment and regimes. Watercolor illustrations evoke the spirit of each story. General and undergraduate collections. D. L. Heyck Loyola University Chicago