New Books In Education

Claudia Rueda’s book Students of Revolution: Youth, Protest, and Coalition-Building in Somoza-Era Nicaragua (University of Texas Press, 2019) is a history of student organizing against dictatorship in twentieth-century Nicaragua. By mobilizing in support of the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional and other anti-Somoza forces, students helped to build what Rueda calls “a culture of insurrection” that made armed revolutionary struggle seem imaginable and needed to Nicaraguans from many backgrounds. What made students such an effective political force in Nicaragua was that as valuable future professionals and idealized youth, students enjoyed great latitude to express dissent and counted upon widespread public sympathy when they faced state repression. Drawing from oral histories and rich archives of student movements, Rueda documents how student activism against authoritarianism developed from the 1930s to 1979 as university enrollment grew and diversified. Student tactics and ideological commitments shift