Decade of Revolution [images] (Book Review)

“Nicaragua : A Decade of Revolution”, #0393029654, c1991, edited by Lou Dematteis & Chris Vail, with an introduction by Eduardo Galeano, and text by Anthony Jenkins. [Info/Buy]

This was probably the most controversial, mainstream, book-based collection of images of Nicaragua published in the 1980’s and 1990’s. The images themselves didn’t necessarily spark the debate; the debate was due to the accompanying text. Some reviews were so critical of the text, that it almost surely stunted sales, even to left-leaning public and university libraries in North America - which make up a measurable portion of the potential buyers for such books.

The book covers the Sandinistas and the country, from the overthrow of Somoza (1979) to the election of Chamorro (1990). There are more than 130 black & white images of varying format, printed here in a nice, hefty, oversize volume (approx. 9”x12”). It is a very collective effort, incorporating the images from nearly 50 photographers, some famous, while some first gained recognition with their Nicaragua-based images - some of which are included in this volume.

To say the authors and editors support or sympathize with the Sandinistas would be an understatement - though this has surprisingly little to do with the quality and power of the images included, nor does it have all that much bearing on the balance of the images selected. Many of the images used here could just have well also have been used, or used instead, in a book championing the eventual defeat of the Sandinistas at the voter box.

Famed Uruguayan journalist Eduardo Galeano (author of “Window on Sandino”, “Memory of Fire”, and perhaps most famously, “The Open Veins of Latin America” -a study of centuries of Latin American exploitation- which in 1973, following the Junta takeover, was banned in Uruguay, just as Galeano was exiled) provides the framework for the project as a whole. In keeping with a long history of South American writers, Galeano often couches his analysis in terms of the things most every Latin person has come to know quite well: sex, blood, death, evil, god, fate and soccer - though not necessarily in that order. He refrains from this in this volume, though not in his subsequent defenses of it. Nevertheless, his text is as powerful as it is angry - thought this is not to say he is factually incorrect in most all of what he writes.

The problem, if it can be called that, is that Galeano’s accompanying text is often more of a sermon on, than a preface to, what follows. It is the combining of such text with “documentary images”, which more than anything probably rubbed some people -including reviewers at the time- the wrong way. It is not as common in North America, where the reviewers and intended audience were based, to see so many straightaway “objective” photographic images used as support of a political stance - be it a diatribe, apology, etc. It is far more common to “let the pictures speak for themselves”. Even if the old adage, that a picture is worth a 1000 words, turns out to be a wild exaggeration, it would still be tempting to many North American editors to compile the images without this, admittedly brief, accompanying text (then again, reviewers are supposed to be offering a reasoned assessment on the merits of the book; they are supposed to be reviewing the book, not the Sandinista government, nor the U.S. opposition to it).

In some ways, what made the book sell poorly in many circles a decade-and-a-half ago, make it all the more interesting now. What was criticized then, seems tame, if even meriting mention, today. Many of the people taking the pictures believed much of what Galeano does, so it seems peculiar to single out the “guest author” for blame or implanting prejudice to the volume. The text in the volume is actually far less “political” than many University Press publications from North America, so with hindsight it even more seems like much to do about nothing - but that is not how it was upon publication, which seriously undermined sales, which is why the book is somewhat obscure today.

But, in the end, the accompanying text is hardly why one buys a portrait of a decade - a themed collection of historical images. It is the images which matter, or should have mattered when the book was first released and reviewed. Damatteis and Vail, combined, spent more than a decade in Nicaragua, and had ample images to pick from for inclusion here. Since the images therein are so good, any one of dozens could have been used on the dust-jacket of the book (my personal copy lacks a jacket, and unfortunately this was one of the better, and the largest image I came across online - though it is still cropped quite a bit to be used on the book cover). However, the one selected, shot by Perry Kretz (Stern Images), is clearly one of the best images of the era. Taken July 20th, 1979, in a well-beyond-capacity crowd (not easy to see in the severely cropped thumbnail offered here, but the lamp posts, trees, and even the framed edges and rooftop of the Cathedral are covered with people) in the "Plaza de la Republic", renamed, "Plaza de la Revolucion", shortly thereafter.

This is an excellent anthology, which has not been widely viewed, due mostly to it having been mischaracterized upon publication; unfortunately, it is often quite pricey on the used-book market.