After Nicaragua achieved independence from Spain in 1821, it suffered a series of conflicts culminating in the two-year National War. When that war ended in 1857, Nicaragua was in ruins. The Everyday Nation-State explores what followed: the intersection of nation-state formation and everyday life in nineteenth-century Nicaragua. Rather than focus on the “invented traditions” of anthems, marches, and memorials that convey and reproduce an established sense of national identity and belonging, this work analyzes how such feelings emerged in the struggles of local communities over political authority, identity, and legitimacy. Based on extensive research of court cases, land registries, census materials, correspondence, government publications, and newspapers, The Everyday Nation-State connects the local with the national, prizing the narratives of commoners, while placing them in the larger regional and historical context, and challenging the way we approach the study of the nation-state.

 

Justin Wolfe’s exploration of quotidian social life and politics in nineteenth-century Nicaragua reveals how the diversities of economy, ethnicity, and geography engendered multiple experiences of nation. In turn, these experiences invigorated a new Nicaraguan citizenry as it fragmented local community power and autonomy in the face of a nascent modern state. This local perspective also provides a key to understanding the rise of twentieth-century figures such as revolutionary Augusto C. Sandino and dictator Anastasio Somoza.

Justin Wolfe is an assistant professor of history at Tulane University.

"Wolfe's book makes an important contribution to Nicaraguan historiography by providing a nuanced and heavily researched analysis of the rural origins of the Nicaraguan state. Hopefully Wolfe's book will lead comparative scholars interested in Latin American nation-state formation to incorporate Nicaragua's 1857 conjuncture into their analysis."—Michael Gobat, A Contracorriente

"Justin Wolfe's book represents a sophisticated and significant advance in Central American historiography. . . . His analysis of the transformation of the indigenous communities of the Prefecture of Granada from vital to virtually moribund organisations between the 1860s and the 1880s is among the most impressive pieces of work in the extant nineteenth century historiography of Central America."—Jeffrey L. Gould, Bulletin of Latin American Research

Publication of this volume was assisted by a grant from the School of Liberal Arts, Tulane University.