Julie Shayne's book focuses on the complex relationship between revolution and feminism. It examines women's contributions to revolutions and how revolutions relate to the emergence and consolidation of a feminist agenda. The book constitutes an important contribution to our understanding of the role women play in revolutionary movements and how their experiences subsequently can transform society. Shayne presents an original, incisive analysis of three types of revolutionary experiences that she categorizes as negotiated (El Salvador), partial (Chile), and successful (Cuba).

Shayne divides The Revolution Question into six chapters that examine the revolutionary struggles of El Salvador and Cuba, as well as the transformation of Chilean society under Salvador Allende, an elected socialist president. As part of her postrevolutionary analysis, she examines feminism in postwar El Salvador, the role of the women's movement in postinsurrection Cuba, and the challenges Chilean women confronted under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet. She relies on in-depth interviews conducted in the 1990s during several extended field trips to El Salvador and Chile. In the case of Cuba, she faced the same difficulties other researchers have encountered. Because she was denied official support for her research, her time in Cuba was limited to one month. Nevertheless, she managed to conduct a series of impressive interviews.

An increasingly important body of thought examines women's participation in revolutionary movements. Shayne makes a significant contribution to this literature by providing evidence of how the emergence of feminism can have its roots in this revolutionary experience. This “revolutionary feminism” in turn seeks to transform the established political and socioeconomic structures that are the basis for injustice and inequality. She views revolutionary feminism as “a grassroots movement that is both pluralist and autonomous in structure” (p. 9).

The author argues convincingly that women can play the role of “gendered revolutionary bridges” (p. 17). For example, in the case of El Salvador, women who were part of the popular movement opposing the authoritarian regime were crucial in mobilizing support for the guerrilla forces and thus represented a bridge “between unincorporated civilians and the armed resistance” (p. 34). Further, the experience of women in these struggles, whether as armed combatants or in logistical support roles, led many women to organize as part of a women's movement in the wake of peace accords or the taking of power.

Shayne maintains that women's contributions tend to be undervalued and easily forgotten. Chile's recent past demonstrates that women can effectively rally behind both revolutionary and counterrevolutionary causes. Further, the policies instituted by revolutionary regimes do not necessarily benefit the emergence of an autonomous women's movement. Ironically, it was under the repressive dictatorship of Pinochet that the feminist movement flourished. On the other hand, Fidel Castro's Cuba provided benefits to women in the social and economic sphere that were unprecedented in Latin America. Simultaneously, however, the emergence of revolutionary feminism was preempted. The Cuban Women's Federation (FMC) enjoys a state-assigned monopoly in mobilizing and representing women. The organization's symbiotic relationship with the Communist Party makes autonomous development impossible and has reduced the FMC to mobilizing women in support of the revolutionary project. The subordination of women's strategic gender interests to the interests of the revolution as defined by a small, mostly male elite is the key factor explaining the absence of “a collective feminist consciousness” in Cuba (p. 156). Based on her research, Shayne reaches the conclusion that to the extent that a feminist consciousness does exist it “is an unconscious one, not sufficient for energizing a revolutionary feminist movement” (p. 156). This raises the provocative question of whether Cuba will follow the path of Nicaragua where a hundred flowers of the feminist movement bloomed only after the Sandinista government had lost power.

Karen Kampwirth discusses this Nicaraguan experience in her book, Feminism and the Legacy of Revolution. Thus, a central theme in both books addresses the relationship between the women's movement and revolutionary governments. The authors find important parallels between Sandinista Nicaragua and Fidelista Cuba. Kampwirth argues that AMNLAE, the Nicaraguan women's movement, was characterized by the same lack of autonomy under the revolutionary government (1979–90) that Shayne emphasized in the case of Cuba's FMC. In an ominous sign for Cuba, Nicaragua's official women's organization became moribund once its sponsor, the Sandinista government, was defeated. At the same time, however, an autonomous women's movement started to flourish. Further, Kampwirth demonstrates that women's organizing in the postrevolutionary period was characterized by the “beginning of coalition building across partisan and class lines” (p. 66).

Kampwirth addresses some of the same questions raised by Shayne while examining the experience of two additional countries. Having discussed women's contributions to revolutionary movements in an earlier book—a companion volume to the present one—Kampwirth focuses her analysis on the legacy of the Nicaraguan and Salvadoran revolutionary movements. In the case of Chiapas, she describes events following the emergence of the Zapatista movement on the public scene in 1994.

Whereas both authors write about El Salvador, Kampwirth brings Nicaragua and Chiapas into the discussion. Her analysis draws on more than two years of field research and a wealth of personal interviews (more than 200) conducted over the last decade. She explores the central questions of “how and why many of the women that were mobilized within the guerrilla organizations were to break away from those organizations after the wars ended” (p. xii) and subsequently create autonomous feminist movements. The author starts out with an analysis of gender politics in revolutionary Nicaragua and then examines the dialectics of feminist and antifeminist politics in the wake of the 1990 Sandinista electoral defeat. The subsequent two chapters examine the rise of feminist politics following the 1992 Salvadoran peace accords and the relationship between feminist politics and the Zapatista rebellion in Mexico. A concluding chapter analyzes feminism and revolutionary movements from a comparative perspective.

Kampwirth posits that the feminist leaders that emerged in Nicaragua and El Salvador tended to come from the rank and file of the armed movements. In her terms, these “mid-prestige women” (p. 9) were compelled into action by their experience of gender discrimination while serving in the guerrilla armies and by the lack of opportunities encountered after the wars ended.

Kampwirth highlights the extent to which the Nicaraguan feminist movement influenced the development of an autonomous women's movement in El Salvador. In her view, “one can reasonably argue that the autonomous feminist movement would not have emerged when it did (or possibly not at all) if not for the catalytic influence of feminists from Nicaragua and elsewhere” (p. 100). In addition to the Nicaraguan influence, Salvadoran women benefited from a favorable international climate.

The author argues that in “Nicaragua and El Salvador, organized feminism can be seen as an unintended consequence of guerrilla struggle” (p. 7), whereas in the case of Chiapas, “the relationship between women's organizing and guerrilla politics is reciprocal” (p. 9). Women's organizing predated the emergence of the guerrilla movement and helped to shape it. On the other hand, the existence of the Zapatistas influenced women's organizing. From its very beginning, the Zapatista movement incorporated an extensive list of women's demands into its revolutionary program. What distinguishes the Zapatista from other liberation movements was its early insistence on the necessity to address gender relations within the movement itself, as opposed to simply issuing a list of demands directed toward the government. Further, in the Mexican case, Kampwirth highlights the complex interplay between the indigenous and the women's rights agendas.

In her concluding chapter, the author examines the case of the revolutions in Iran and Poland to illustrate her argument that “there is nothing natural or automatic about the relationship between revolution and feminism” (p. 165). In the end, “feminism, like any ideology, only takes root when the local conditions are favorable” (p. 196). She also speculates on the future of feminism in a post-Castro Cuba.

Both authors view feminism as revolutionary at its core, since in Kampwirth's words, “the world it seeks to turn upside down is that most intimate world, the world of daily life and the home” (p. 18). These books are of great interest to scholars and students working on gender politics, women and politics, revolution, regime transitions, social movements, and development theory.