Managing the Commanding Heights: Nicaragua's State Enterprises

Revolutions have often occurred in poor countries. Although triumphant revolutionaries may lack the resources to assume complete responsibility for their country’s economy, they do tend to nationalize what Lenin called the “commanding heights”—those enterprises that meet the strategic needs of the polity. How these enterprises are administered is consequential, and at times decisive, for the course of revolutionary change.

In Managing the Commanding Heights, Forrest D. Colburn explores the...