ALAN McGUIRE welcomes a biography of the French semiologist and philosopher
Understanding the Sandinistas
ROGER MCKENZIE recommends a landmark study that emphasises the importance of grassroots organisation in the defence of a socialist, non-aligned nation
THE SHAPE OF THINGS TO COME: Last September, Managua Mayor Reyna Rueda Alvarado officially presented the model flats of the housing programme Nuevas Victorias (New Victories) - 134 are to be built by December with the support of the Chinese Agency for International Development Cooperation. A total of 12,034 houses will be built in 84 municipalities, 15 departments and two autonomous regions of the country
[www.managua.gob.ni] 
ALEX HALL is frustrated by a book that ducks a clear definition of terrorism and fails to perceive the role of the state in sponsoring it
JOE GILL wholeheartedly recommends an eloquent manifesto: how to change the world one local project at a time
Inspired by a photograph, a unique memorial in Michigan immortalises US true labour heroes. MICHAL BONCZA recalls a great story rarely told
MARIA DUARTE, LEO BOIX and ANGUS REID review Brides, Dead of Winter, A Night Like This, and The Librarians
MARIA DUARTE is entertained by a wry portrait of befuddled resistance to US authoritarianism
Nicaragua Must Survive: Sandinista Revolutionary Diplomacy in the Global Cold War
Eline Van Ommen
University of California Press, £25
NICARAGUA Must Survive makes the important point that not all innovative organising or political strategies have to be designed and birthed by some North American all-knowing, slick-talking guru. In what is one of the best books I have read on organising, Eline Van Ommen, a lecturer in Contemporary History at the University of Leeds, celebrates the role played by grassroots organisers in transforming history.
This is a point that is easily overlooked. It is all too easy to cite examples of how professional politicians are the ones who make history rather than the tens of thousands of people who share a common cause and are willing to put themselves on the line to bring about change or, as in Nicaragua, winning and securing a revolution.
The professional politicians obviously played a role in Nicaragua but the book shows how the strategies to transform this small country of just over six million people was largely driven from the grassroots.
More from this author
ROGER McKENZIE argues that the BRI represents a choice between treating humans as commodities or as equals — an essential project when, aside from China’s efforts, hundreds of millions worldwide are trapped in poverty
The colonial mindset behind the governance of the UN is the reason for its inertia when it comes to conflict resolution, argues ROGER McKENZIE – but can China’s Global Governance Initiative point in a new direction of global equality?
