Grenier offers a better understanding of the causes of revolution in El Salvador through an analysis of the central role of ideas and ideologues. The insurgency was not merely the charismatic embodiment of structurally determined processes, as it is commonly suggested, it was the expression of a distinct and forceful political will. The focus is placed on the period of emergence of insurgency (roughly, the 1970s and early 1980s), a period too often confounded (and not only in the Salvadoran case) with subsequent periods of the revolutionary cycle.

Foreword by Mitchell A. Seligson List of Acronyms List of Tables, Figure and Map Introduction CHAPTER 1: CHALLENGING THE DOMINANT PARADIGM Insurgency and Internal war The World of Ideologies Ideologies and the Sequences of Internal War New Propositions on the Etiology of Internal War CHAPTER 2: FROM CAUSES TO 'CAUSERS' The Insurgents The Dominant and General Passions The Ideology of LA Realidad CHAPTER 3: REVOLUTION WITHIN THE REVOLUTION The FMLN A Leninist Vanguard The Clash with LA Realidad The Siren Song of Election CHAPTER 4: THE UNIVERSITY VANGUARD The National University of El Salvador: In the State Orbit Exacerbating the Contradictions Vanguardism The Radical Left in Power CHAPTER 5: THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, SOCIAL CHANGE AND INSURRECTION Mobilizing the People Vanguardism The Central American University 'José Simeón Cañas' Conclusion Selected Bibliography Index

YVON GRENIER is Associate Professor of Political Science at St. Francis Xavier University, in Nova Scotia, former editor of the Canadian Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, and author of many publications, including Guerre et Pouvoir au Salvador (1994).