The Politics of Modern Central America: Civil War, Democratization, and Underdevelopment

I have a review of Fabrice Lehoucq's The Politics of Modern Central America: Civil War, Democratization, and Underdevelopment in the newest edition of Peace Review: A Journal of Social Justice.

While public attention has turned away from Central America since the end of the Cold War, scholars have been busy trying to make sense of its civil wars, transitions to democracy, and postwar economic development. Scholars have utilized a variety of different methods from different disciplinary perspectives in order to better explain the causes, course, termination, and aftermath of civil war. Given the amount of research accumulated over the last few decades on the Central American states, individually and comparatively, and the number of cross-national studies on the causes and consequences of civil war, democracy, and economic development, Fabrice Lehoucq has embarked on quite an ambitious journey to tie them all together in a much needed contribution with The Politics of Modern Central America.

I wasn't the biggest fan of the book but you can find the review here. It wasn't mean to replace it, but I still prefer Understanding Central America.

***Update*** Might as well add the conclusion:

Fabrice Lehoucq surveys a vast literature on civil wars, democratization, and  underdevelopment in The Politics of Modern Central America. Much of my disappointment from the book comes from the fact that there is such rich literature on each topic and a good deal of itwas excluded. Even with these criticisms, however, the text still provides a solid introduction to Central America for those interested in learning about the political and economic development of the region over the last several decades and how those experiences compare to the rest of the world.