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the accumulated distortions of both Left andRight, and after a half-century of trivialization,affords their lives, sacrifices, and deaths with adeserved measure of tragic pathos.

In January 1933 during the liberal period ofthe republic, the anarchosyndicalists of theobscure village of Casas Viejas assaulted thelocal civil guard barracks. In the process theykil led twoguardias wi th shotguns. Unsure what t odo next, they were easily routed by police rein-forcements, enjoying only a few hours of unac-customed sovereignty. Some of the fleeingmilitants holed up in the shack of an old mannicknamed "Seisdedos" (Six Fingers). The policesurrounded them, and in the ensuing standofftwo more guardias were wounded, one fatally.Finally, the enraged police commander ignitedthe hut and machine-gunned i t s occupants asthey exited. The guardias then massacred1 2 moremen, some involved, others innocent. The sub-sequent national outrage contributed to the fallof the Azana government later that year.

These horrible events, viewed later through thehaze of reportorial distortion and prejudice,fleshed out the grotesque Left mythology of anar-c i s t infantile adventurism, while excitingbourgeois fears of a pointless nihi lism. Only theanarchists themselves could describe theirmotivations or explain what they hoped toachieve. Yet the survivors were rarely consulted;or worse, their agonized forced confessions weretaken at face value. So the myth developed:Seisdedos was a demonic patriarch something onthe order of Charles Manson; he was responsiblefor everything; his children and a few deludedfollowers rose up at his command in a frenziedoutburst; anarchism was nothing more than abizarre cult-unplanned, murderous, mindless,and malignant. Hobsbawm accepted this carica-ture as have others before and after him. Ob-viously, i f the myth could be disproved the eventsof Casas Viejas might cast a new light onSpanish anarchism.

Mintz has done this with celerity. I t turns outthat Seisdedos was only accidentally involved (hewas apolitical); the killings of the police were notgenerally approved of; and the seeminglysuicidal defense of the hut was motivated by(reasonable) ear of police chicanery rather thanblind passion. Moreover, the uprising itself washardly spontaneous: local militants acted on in-structions from the provincial capital only to beleft in the lurch when a communications break-down failed to coordinate what was planned as aregional strike.

S t i l l , Mintz is careful not to romanticize.Adroitly directing informant loquacity, he con-jures a melancholy mixture of na'ivet6, myopia,and desperation which can only be called heart-breaking. And this turns out to be the ultimatetragedy: the ignorance, the illusory hopes, andthe doomed idealism and impetuosity whichmade inevitable the cruel fate. Again and again,his informants by way of explanation remark:"We were ignorant then; we know better now."

Mintz has succeeded brilliantly in humanizing

anarchism and explaining (if not justifying) theviolence it provoked. He i s also fair in assigningblame and in pointing out occasional acts ofgovernment decency as well as its gratuitouscruelty. Good, evil, and error are evenly assessedin this book. The picture presented i s thusthoroughly convincing because it is so balanced;every word rings true. Finally, what i s so gratify-ing in Mintz's accomplishment is the optimism itcreates indirectly for the new Spain. For these An-dalusians have seen so much, have come so farsince the civ il war, that the fratric idal hatreds ofthe past seem dreamlike, superseded, antedilu-vian. This book leaves the reader doubly en-riched-with a deeper understanding of both thepast and the present. For i t s intellectual andhumanitarian achievements, for its politicalhonesty, for its power and i t s beauty (there i s noother word), this book deserves to be called amasterpiece.

Flshers of Men or Founders o f Emp ire? TheWycl i f fe Bible Translators in L a t h America.DAVID STOLL. London: Zed Press; and Cam-bridge, MA: Cultural Sunrival, Inc., 1982. vii44 pp., maps, tables, bibliography, index.35.00 (cloth), 12.50 (paper).

WILLIAM T V I C K E R SFlorida International University

The Wycliffe Bible Translators/Summer In-stitute of Linguistics (WBT/SIL) has attracted theattention and criticism of numerous anthropol-ogists, Third World nationalists, and indigenousactivists dating back to i t s beginnings in the late1930s.Yet through the years, i t has grown into thelargest single foreign missionary organization inthe world, with a current membership of morethan 4000. The stated go l of the WBT/SlL i s totranslate the Bible into a ll of the major languagesand dialects of the world, based on the belief thatpeople who have access to the Scriptures in theirown languages will experience revelatory truths.Critics of the WBT/SlL accuse the multifacetedorganization (which also includes the JungleAviation and Radio Service, or JAARS) ofpolitical, economic, and military espionage,ethnocide, promotion of US. imperialism in theThird World, supporting corrupt pro-Americandictatorships, linguistic incompetence, and eventhe enslavement of native peoples. Any realunderstanding of the facts i s made difficult bythe plethora of charges (frequently exaggeratedand/or lacking documentation), as well as by theS I L s unfortunate predilections for secrecy, ofuscation, and the adoption of a siege mentalityin fac ing its critics.

Many heavily slanted articles and books havebeen written in defense of the WBT/SIL (mostoften by individuals with missionary connectionsor leanings) and even more condemning it (mostoften by liberal or leftist social scientists andpolitical writers). Now, at last, someone has writ-ten what should become the standard scholarly

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reference work on the SIL That someone is DavidStoll, and the book is Fishers of Men r Foundersof Empire

Stolls work is impressive and is exceptionallyfine-grained. In fact, it i s so full of detail on SILoperations in various countries (particularly inLatin America) that some readers may find thegoing a lit tle tedious. However, this depth of in-formation i s really one of the prime strengths ofthe book, especially for those who have seriousinterests in the relationships among nativepeoples, foreign religious missions, and thepolitical economy of Third World development.The documentation is particularly impressivewhen one considers the burden of misinforma-tion surrounding the SIL and the organizationsusual hesitancy to discuss the details of its struc-ture and operations. For those who have beenconfounded by these difficulties, Stoll providesexcellent data on SILs historical roots, i t s doc-trines and ideology, its organizational structure,the composition of i t s membership and supportgroups, i t s strategies in dealing with foreigngovernments, and i t s modus operandi.

Stoll i s to be congratulated for establishing afactual and nonpolemical tone in this book. Thisis not to say that he avoids making criticisms orinterpretations of the data. Stoll i s an anthropol-ogist, and many SIL personnel view anthropol-ogists as anathema and may view this book as yetanother godless attack on their mission. But Stollis critical in the best sense of the word. He pointsout SILs conservative foundations, anticommu-nist sentiments, pol it ical maneuverings, fai lure tograpple with many of the fundamental in-digenous rights issues, and scholarly shortcom-ings, but he also documents some positive effectsof SILs activities and the excesses of certain ofi t s critics. Stoll illuminates the internal conflictswithin SIL over policies and strategies and thehigh demands placed on the loyalties of itsmembers. This book gives the reader far morehonest and profound insights into the workings ofthe SIL than any work which the S L itself hasproduced.

In the final analysis, Stoll never gives a directanswer to the question posed by the books title,nor does he make an explicit recommendationconcerning whether the developing nationsshould ban the work of the Institute or allow it tocontinue. The information presented in the book,however, forces one to conclude that the SILsmissions are fishers of men and, while notfounders of empire, are at least connected towhat might be termed empire. The SIL i s com-posed of people who see themselves primarily asChristians engaged in a mission of Bible transla-tion. At the same time, most of them are Ameri-cans who have predominantly conservativepolitical views and who see communism as amanifestation of the devils work. The conspiracytheorists who believe that the SIL i s a simple frontfor the CIA will find little support for their viewsin this book. It i s true, however, that the SIL hasinfluential ties to capitalist enterprise, politi-cians, and military figures in the United States

and in the developing countries in which it works.Rather than being a simple tool of these interests,it appears that the S I L depends on support fromsuch quarters to maintain i t s working status invarious national contexts.

The SIL is not an empire per se, but foreignmissions such as the SIL are part of the larger pro-cess in which powerful nations export political,economic, social, and ideological patterns to therelatively weaker and poorer regions of theworld. Today, people in many developing coun-tries are debating whether some aspects of thisprocess should be limited or controlled. Mission-ary organizations are fa ir ly vulnerable t o such na-tionalist sentiments, and the SJL has already seeni t s operations in Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, andBrazil curtailed or limited. Yet, in other nations,such as Colombia and Peru, it has shown aremarkable ability to weather a series of attacks.t s entirely fi tting that the parameters of foreign

missionary activities be defined by the peoplesand nations that are most directly affected bysuch activities. If organizations such as the S I Lare to survive, they will have to adapt to therapidly evolving realities of indigenous politicalawareness and Third World nationalism.

CaRones: Values Crisis, and Survlval in aNor thern New Mex ico V i llage. PAULKUTSCHE and JOHN R. VAN NESS. Albu-querque: The University of New MexicoPress, 1982. xx 244 pp., maps, tables,figures, glos sary, blbllog raphy, Index. 17.50(cloth).

NANClE L . CONZALEZUniversity of Maryland, College Park

Southwestern scholars have waited a long timefor an ethnography on northern New Mexico, andthis is likely to attract a good bit of attention, notonly within academia but among present andformer citizens of the state. It i s beautifully writ-ten-a surprising feat, given the joint authorshipand that the fieldwork was done by four investi-gators over a 13-year period between 1967 and1980.

The table of contents is not unl ike that of stan-dard ethnographies, yet this is different. In anunusual anthropological style, the authors ex-plain their personal commitment, admitting to alove affair with the village and describing it inscandalously personal terms, complete with ac-tual names, photographs, and quotations fromtheir various informants. Although some of thelatter had an opportunity to read an early draft,and some religious details were deleted at theirrequest, there is no explicit statement from themapproving the book. The community i s presentedwith considerable tact and empathy, bu t there isroom for potential embarrassment, too.

From a professional anthropological viewpointthe book i s disappointing because of the things itdoes not include. The tables present only crude

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