The Five Republics of Central America: Their Political and Economic Development and Their Relations with the United States

A scholarly historical and political study written in the early 20th century. It analyzes Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica—their geographies, societies, economies, and political institutions since independence—while assessing how foreign, especially U.S., influence shapes their development. Aimed at correcting stereotypes and informing policy, it balances critique with recognition of progress, focusing on class structures, agriculture (coffee and bananas), governance, revolutions, finance, and international relations. The opening of the study sets out Munro’s purpose: to replace superficial caricatures with a careful, firsthand account based on travel, documents, and interviews, and to stress why U.S. understanding matters. It first surveys the land and people, detailing climate zones, the urban elite and its reliance on plantation agriculture, the mestizo artisan class, and the largely Indigenous laboring majority—covering living conditions, wages, disease (including hookworm campaigns), education gaps (strongest in Costa Rica, weakest in Guatemala), and the waning influence of the Catholic Church. It explains how colonial isolation, poor transport, and later the rise of coffee and banana exports (notably United Fruit on the Caribbean coast), railways, and foreign capital reshaped economies and social power, often to the advantage of foreigners. The narrative then sketches Central American political institutions from independence: annexationist debates, the short-lived federation, Liberal–Conservative strife, and the drift toward centralized presidents, sham elections, executive dominance over congress and courts, military conscription, patronage, and pervasive graft, with revolution as the routine means of change. Beginning its country studies with Guatemala, it recounts Conservative rule under Carrera, Liberal triumph under Barrios (anticlerical reforms and failed union bid), and the long, repressive Estrada Cabrera era marked by secret policing, censorship, and low-paid, corrupt officialdom—emphasizing order maintained at the cost of civic life.