Many scholars of Latin America have argued that the introduction of coffee forced most people to become landless proletarians toiling on large plantations. "Cultivating Coffee "tells a different story: small and medium-sized growers in Nicaragua were a vital part of the economy, constituting the majority of the farmers and holding most of the land.
Alongside these small commercial farmers was a group of subsistence farmers, created by the state's commitment to supplying municipal lands to communities. These subsistence growers became the workforce for their coffee-growing neighbors,...