| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3

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| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 93.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Confronting the American Dream: Nicaragua under U.S. Imperial Rule. By Michel Gobat. (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005. xvi, 373 pp. Cloth, $84.95, ISBN 0-8223-3634-0. Paper, $23.95, ISBN 0-8223-3647-2.)

This book is an ambitious attempt to revise the history of Nicaragua under American rule. Rather than describing a simple story of resistance culminating with Augusto César Sandino's celebrated rebellion, Michel Gobat analyzes the complex political and economic patterns of resistance and accommodation to United States' imperial designs. Utilizing a dialectical approach, Gobat also incorporates culture into his study, demonstrating that Nicaraguans alternately embraced and rejected values associated with the United States. Gobat, an associate professor of history at the University of Iowa, challenges common myths and assumptions about a number of historical figures and events, beginning with the William Walker episode and ending with Sandino's rebellion. He argues: "U.S. imperial rule in Nicaragua, unlike elsewhere in the Caribbean Basin, helped 'democratize' rural society by weakening landlord hegemony over the peasantry" (p. 5). He maintains that "this peculiar impact of U.S. imperial rule was unintended and resulted from the fact that poorer Nicaraguans managed to cope more effectively with U.S. political and economic impositions that was possible for elite Nicaraguans" (ibid.).

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