Nicaragua, a Decade of Revolution: A Decade of Revolution

This often controversial book chronicles the activities of the Sandinistas and the contras from the overthrow of dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979 to the election of Violeta Chamorro as president in 1990. The book's sympathies are clearly on the side of the Sandinistas. Galeano ( Century of the Wind ) sets the tone by decrying the ``despoilment of the world'' by the U.S. government, with its ``criminal system'' of ``financial extortion.'' The Uruguayan writer extols the Sandinistas' socialist system and calls the election of the U.S.-backed Chamorro ``a blow like hatred from God.'' Many of the black-and-white duotones that follow are affecting, although few capture the revolutionary spirit to which Galeano so thoughtfully gives voice. Among the most meaningful pictures are those of a wounded Sandinista soldier lying in a hospital bed, his open shirt exposing a foot-long suture down his stomach; children enjoying a respite from the strife around them as they rehearse for a Maypole (sic) festival; Nicaraguan women, looking as if nothing was amiss, drinking beer at a U.S. Embassy party; and a murdered peasant, with a large hole in his head. Dematteis and Vail are photographers who spent five years in Nicaragua. (Mar.)