The following review appeared in the April 2016 issue of CHOICE:
Honduras did not receive much media attention until a 2009 military coup removed Manuel Zelaya’s elected government from power. Since then, the Central American country has been firmly at the forefront of Latin American activist and academic attention. Strong and well-organized popular resistance to the coup altered how many outside observers thought about the country. The resilience of this resistance, however, came as no surprise to anthropologist Phillips (Southern Oregon Univ.), who has accompanied social movements in that country for more than 40 years. In this important and compelling book, Phillips documents a range of Indigenous, religious, cultural, legal, and political forms of resistance to long-standing patterns of exploitation and domination. A final chapter examines US governmental intervention in Honduras, and international people-to-people solidarity movements that counter political and economic interference in the country’s internal affairs. This book can usefully be read in conjunction with the work of leading Honduran scholars Dana Frank (Bananeras: Women Transforming the Banana Unions of Latin America, 2005) and Adrienne Pine (Working Hard, Drinking Hard: On Violence and Survival in Honduras, 2008). Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries.