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Brizio N. Biondi–Morra, Hungry Dreams: The Failure of Food Policy in Revolutionary Nicaragua, 1979–1990 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1993). pp. xiv + 214, $38.50.

One may quibble about details of the story: for example, it can be argued that because the Sandinista revolution suffered an initial external shock far more damaging than the rest of Central America, the government's eschewal of a flexible exchange rate in favour of the administered allocation of foreign exchange condemned the economy to severe macro-imbalance at the start, an imbalance temporarily alleviated by large inflows of foreign aid. Equally, the author initially seems to assert rather unproblematically that the Sandinistas did not believe in a centrally planned economy. In truth, while several comandantes did not, others clearly favoured a Cuban-style model and this remained an important if sometimes disguised theme of Party ideological debate throughout the 1980s. Indeed, Chapter IV on the mixed economy provides an absolutely fascinating account of how far Nicaragua had moved towards material-balance planning by the mid-1980s. The author has produced an excellent and highly readable book on the Sandinista experiment, one which goes well beyond 1980s industrial development strategy in Nicaragua by addressing a wide spectrum of economic issues. Moreover, the book places the key issues within the context of the ECLA debate over Central American economic integration and, equally important, of classical debates in socialism. This book is one which anybody interested in Central America whether sympathetic or not to the Sandinista experiment will find hard to put down.