A Call to Conscience: The Anti-Contra War Campaign (Culture, Politics & the Cold War) - Softcover

Peace, Roger

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1558499326 ISBN 13: 9781558499324

Publisher: University Massachusetts Press, 2012

Synopsis

Unlike earlier U.S. interventions in Latin America, the Reagan administration’s attempt to overthrow the Sandinista government of Nicaragua during the 1980s was not allowed to proceed quietly. Tens of thousands of American citizens organised and agitated against U.S. aid to the counterrevolutionary guerrillas, known as “contras.” Believing the Contra War to be unnecessary, immoral, and illegal, they challenged the administration’s Cold War stereotypes, warned of “another Vietnam,” and called on the United States to abide by international norms.

A Call to Conscience offers the first comprehensive history of the anti–Contra War campaign and its Nicaragua connections. Roger Peace places this eight-year campaign in the context of previous American interventions in Latin America, the Cold War, and other grassroots oppositional movements. Based on interviews with American and Nicaraguan citizens and leaders, archival records of activist organisations, and official government documents, this book reveals activist motivations, analyses the organisational dynamics of the anti–Contra War campaign, and contrasts perceptions of the campaign in Managua and Washington.

Peace shows how a variety of civic groups and networks―religious, leftist, peace, veteran, labour, women’s rights―worked together in a decentralised campaign that involved extensive transnational cooperation.

About this title

About the Author

Roger Peace is adjunct professor of history at Tallahassee Community College.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Massachusetts Press
• Publication date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1558499326
• ISBN 13: 9781558499324
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 302