21 - Honduras

Summary

The social and economic backwardness of Honduras in the period since 1930 is reflected in the shortage of good general works and specialized monographs. Only in the 1980s, as Honduras became a focus of international attention, did the situation begin to change, although few works on Honduras in this recent period can be regarded as scholarly.

One of the more satisfactory general studies of Honduras is Mario Posas and Rafael Del Cid, La constructión del sector público y del estado national en Honduras 1870–1979 (Tegucigalpa, 1981), which is broader in coverage than its title implies and particularly strong in its interpretation of the period up to 1972. The standard text on Honduras in English is William S. Stokes, Honduras: An Area Study of Government (Madison, Wis., 1950), a remarkably detailed picture of Honduras up to the close of the Cariato, but weak on economics. James Morris, Honduras: Caudillo Politics and Military Rulers (Boulder, Colo., 1984), tries to pick up the story where Stokes left it, but lacks Stokes’s insights and is rather descriptive. As a solid introduction to Honduras, although very heavy on factual information, Howard Blutstein et al., Area Handbook for Honduras (Washington, D.C., 1970) still has value. A good general study, with a useful collection of appendices containing key documents in Honduran history, is Antonio Murga Frassinetti, Enclave y sociedad en Honduras, 2nd ed. (Tegucigalpa, 1985). There is also an excellent study of northern Honduras by Dario Euraque, ‘Merchants and industrialists in Northern Honduras: The making of national bourgeoisie in peripheral capitalism, 1870s–1972’ (unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1990).