The Sandinistas and Nicaragua since 1979, edited by David Close, Salvador Martí i Puig and Shelley McConnell, makes an important contribution to the study of Nicaragua specifically and revolutionary movements more generally. The publication of the book, coming as the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (Sandinista National Liberation Front, FSLN) enters its second term of office in the post-revolutionary period, is particularly significant, because the subject of Nicaragua has almost disappeared from the scholarly literature. Such a lack of attention was not always the case. After the triumph of the Sandinista Revolution in 1979, Nicaragua became an important focus of international politics; a whole generation of scholars from Europe and the United States went to the country for field studies and produced a wide range of books and articles analysing the revolution from all angles. When the FSLN lost power in 1990, however, the scholarly focus diminished rapidly and by a decade later little attention was being paid to Nicaragua. That said, some scholars, including the three co-editors of this book, did continue to analyse the post-Sandinista period, the most notable example being David Close's Nicaragua: The Chamorro Years (Lynne Rienner, 1999).

The main argument of this volume is contained in the concluding chapter by Close and Martí i Puig, in which the authors provide an overview of Nicaraguan events since 1979, including the return of the FSLN to power through the ballot box in 2006. They highlight the uniqueness of the 1979 revolution, the breadth of the revolutionary coalition, the movement's lack of dogmatism and the collectivism of the Sandinista leadership. They also highlight the exceptional level of international solidarity that the Sandinistas received in the 1980s. This solidarity is well documented in the chapter written by Hector Perla. However, exhausted by a decade of hardship brought on in significant measure by a counter-revolutionary war financed by the United States, the Nicaraguan people voted the Sandinistas out of power in 1990. This ushered in 16 years of neoliberal rule that eagerly ended the programmes of the Sandinista Revolution and sought to move Nicaragua forward through programmes of economic growth, with little direct attention to issues of social justice in the hemisphere's second-poorest country. The primary contribution of this volume is to explain how the FSLN reinvented itself as a political party in the last decade and made a successful return to power under Daniel Ortega's leadership. The authors also analyse the character and performance of the programmes that the Sandinistas have pursued once back in power.

A key contribution of the volume, both in separate chapters and in the conclusion by Close and Martí i Puig, is to analyse how the FSLN, under the leadership of Ortega and his wife Rosario Murillo, has been able to exploit the divisions within Nicaragua's liberals in order to place itself back into power. The authors argue that the manner in which this return to power was carried out, with pragmatism and behind-the-scenes deals, fits well into the history of Nicaraguan politics even as it moves the FSLN away from its revolutionary roots and its original promise to break the historical pattern of deciding the country's future behind closed doors. In an excellent and far-reaching chapter, long-time Nicaragua analyst Shelley McConnell traces the evolution of the Nicaraguan election system from its establishment in the early years of the revolution and provides a detailed analysis of the different political parties and their shifting fortunes. McConnell analyses the impact on the electoral system of the various pacts that have been struck between the FSLN and the other political parties. She acknowledges the contribution made by the Sandinista Revolution to the construction of democracy after years of Somoza family rule, but expresses concern over the future of democracy in the country. Citing increased cases of voting fraud, especially in the 2008 municipal election, and the questionable Supreme Court decision in 2009 that ratified Daniel Ortega to run for re-election in 2011, she concludes that Nicaragua is headed towards becoming an ‘illiberal democracy’.

Other important contributions of the book are thematic chapters on Atlantic Coast autonomy land reform, women's issues and poverty that seek to place the performance of the new Sandinista administration in the context of the past 30 years of Nicaraguan history. Karen Kampwirth, a long-time analyst of Nicaragua and the role of gender in Latin American revolutions, presents an insightful analysis of the contradictory nature of gender politics in the Sandinista era. On the one hand, the Sandinista Revolution featured more women's participation than any previous Latin American revolution and spawned the development of one of the strongest feminist movements in Latin America. However, the gains for women have been limited in many areas important to the feminist movement, especially reproductive rights – for example, Nicaragua is one of a handful of countries in Latin America where abortion is illegal under all circumstances. Kampwirth details how this contradiction exists through a comprehensive analysis of the decision by the FSLN leadership to support the ban on therapeutic abortions in 2006 as part of an electoral strategy of appealing to the Catholic Church. She argues that the anti-abortion position did not win votes over to the FSLN but only served to bolster the anti-feminist movement and block many of the goals of the feminist movement in Nicaragua under Sandinista rule. The result is a Nicaraguan feminist movement very much at odds with a Sandinista government that presents itself as progressive.

The chapter by Rose Spaulding, on the poverty reduction programmes of the Sandinistas over a 30-year period, is especially well done. It divides the analysis into three time periods: 1979–90, 1990–2006 and 2007–11. Spaulding's primary focus of analysis is to compare the prospects for poverty reduction of the original revolutionary government of 1979 with those of the second, post-revolutionary FSLN administration. She concludes that both the 1979 and 2007 governments faced similar challenges to rectify Nicaragua's long-term underdevelopment and poverty. When Daniel Ortega took power for the second time in 2007 he faced poverty indicators that were only slightly improved from 30 years earlier, but he did so in a context of much greater constraints in the domestic politics of Nicaragua and the international political and economic environment. Spaulding's balance sheet on the second Ortega administration is that the FSLN government has made modest progress in poverty reduction by concentrating its limited resources, some obtained from Venezuela, on the needs of the poorest and most disadvantaged sectors of the Nicaraguan population. Unlike the 1979 project, which sought redistribution of national wealth, the contemporary government programmes are limited in scope, but with some prospects for modest success in the areas of education, food nutrition and health care. However, all of these modest gains could be undone if for some reason the funding from Venezuela was lost.

In summary, the editors have created a work of consistently high quality that reminds us of the importance for Latin America of the Sandinista Revolution and the necessity of continuing to focus on its ongoing legacy.