ABSTRACT
This chapter provides additional insights into the problems and themes that have preoccupied Central America's radical thinkers and that they have endeavored to comprehend, explain, and resolve. Since the 1940s and 1950s, Central American radicals have been familiar with Vicente Saenz's views on inter-American cooperation and law, and Juan Jose Arevalo perspectives on anticommunism and how it negates social reform. In Central America, where social, economic, and political problems are more severe and there is less wealth to conserve than in the United States, a high percentage of contemporary intellectuals have adopted radical philosophies. Beginning in the second decade of the twentieth century, Central American radical thinkers have looked to, in succession, the Mexican, Russian, Chinese, and Cuban revolutions as models for the elimination of US domination and for ways to stimulate interest in radical nationalism, government planning, and social change.
