Alejandro Bendaña. Sandino: Patria y libertad.
2018; Oxford University Press; Volume: 123; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/ahr/123.1.276
ISSN1937-5239
Autores Tópico(s)Political and Social Dynamics in Chile and Latin America
ResumoNicaraguan historian Alejandro Bendaña has written the most engaging biography of the guerrilla leader Augusto César Sandino, who resisted the occupation of his country from 1927 to 1933 only to be assassinated in 1934 on the orders of soon-to-be dictator Anastasio Somoza. This magnum opus seals Bendaña’s reputation as the preeminent Sandino biographer anywhere. Sandino: Patria y libertad is not a full account, for it largely leaves aside the military details of the Nicaraguan’s strategy and battles against the Yankee invaders, as well as most of his dealings with his commanders, his followers, and Nicaraguan politicians. However, it does interrogate, more deeply than did Bendaña’s own La mística de Sandino (1994), Sandino’s personal life and the roots and implications of his political and spiritual ideas. To Sandino, “fatherland” and “liberty” were no mere slogans. He was deeply attached to both, with liberty his core pursuit. The highest virtue to which a human being could aspire—on the individual level rather than that of the “mass”—was to live free of coercion, whether of a military, political, or economic nature. Freeing Nicaragua from U.S. imperialism was therefore an expression of Sandino’s love of liberty. “A fatherland without freedom is no fatherland,” Bendaña explains (14). However, Sandino was no chauvinist. He never believed in the exceptionalism of Nicaragua, and he consistently sought allies beyond its borders.
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