Depicting a new stage of Salvadoran history that began in 1979, Mario Lungo Uclés offers an acute analysis of the transformation of El Salvador during the 1980's under the impact of revolution and counterinsurgency. This new and expanded English-language edition of his award-winning book traces the historical roots of the Salvadoran insurgency and demonstrates how the counterinsurgency efforts promoted by the United States failed to anticipate either the durability of the rebels or the rise of the Nationalist Republican Alliance as the country's first explicitly bourgeois political party.

Lungo Uclés explains the reasons behind the remarkable outcome of the war in a negotiated settlement and why El Salvador's future requires a major reformulation of the politics and institutions of both the left and the right. This is a work of importance not just for the politics of El Salvador but for other Third World societies in the age of post-Cold War globalization. Author note:

Mario Lungo Uclés is currently Professor at the Universidad Centroamericana in San Salvador, El Salvador. He is former editor of the journal Estudios Sociales Centroamericanos and the author of several books.