Scarcity and Survival in Central America: Ecological Origins of the Soccer War

Looking at both population and land tenure dynamics in their historical context, this study challenges the view that the 1969 conflict between El Salvador and Honduras was primarily a response to population pressure. The author demonstrates that land scarcity, a principal cause of the war, was largely a product of the concentration of landholdings.

The analysis focuses on the emigration of 300,000 Salvadoreans to Honduras in the years before the war, inquiring into the reasons for the …