William M. Leogrande, Our Own Backyard: The United States in Central America 1977–1992, Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press, 1998, xvi + 773 pp. notes and index, US$39.95

Abstract

William LeoGrande has written an important history of U. S. policy in Central America with a focus on the crucial period from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. The author is exceedingly well qualified to write critically about the Reagan years. In the late 1970s he gained a reputation for his research on Cuban foreign policy, and after 1981 he emerged as a major critic of the Reagan administration. A professor of government at American University in Washington D. C., he produced a range of influential policyoriented books and articles during the 1980s which made a substantial contribution to the growing critical literature on U. S. policy in Central America. He was on the editorial board of NACLA Report on the Americas and the World Policy Journal for many years. He testified before the Kissinger Commission on Central America in 1982 and served on the U. S. House of Representatives' Democratic Caucus Task Force on Central America in 1985 and 1986. He was also on the executive board of Policy Alternatives for the Caribbean and Central America (PACCA) which was aimed at further activating opposition in Congress to Reagan's policy in Central America, as well as mobilising opposition amongst trade unions, church groups, student groups and other community-based organisations.