Institute for the Study of the Americas

Most of the materials held in this collection at present date from period surrounding the 1979 revolution, dealing with the decline and fall of the Somoza dynasty and the progress of the Sandinista government which replaced it. Thus there are reports from NGOs concerned with human rights abuses and economic and social conditions under the old regime alongside publications by and about opposition groups of both gradualist and revolutionary persuasions. Post-revolutionary materials detail the struggle against the US-backed Contra forces, the controversial elections of 1984 and the progress of the Central American Peace Plan. A large proportion of these are authored either by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional (FSLN) themselves or by organisations expressing solidarity with them, including some Church groups despite the antipathy of the Catholic heirerchy to the revolution. It must be noted that the overwhelming majority of the items held here are can be judged to be sympathetic towards the Sandinistas, reflecting inevitably the priorities of those who collected and housed the material.