The Costa Rica Reader: History, Culture, Politics (The Latin America Readers) (Paperback)

~ Steven Palmer (Editor), Iván Molina (Editor), Uli Locher (Contributor), Juanita Sanchez (Contributor), Gloria Mayorga (Contributor), Carmelo Mesa-Lago (Contributor), Steve Marquardt (Contributor), Kirk Bowman (Contributor), Paula Palmer (Contributor), Sylvia Chant (Contributor), Manrique Mata-Montero (Contributor)
Key Phrases: sigatoka control, spray workers, spray crews, Costa Rica, United States, Central Valley (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"a poignant resource for anyone with an eye on the country, whether traveler, grizzled Costa Rica oldtimer, flash-in-the-pan tourist, historian, or Costa Rican national." The Tico Times

Product Description

Long characterized as an exceptional country within Latin America, Costa Rica has been hailed as a democratic oasis in a continent scorched by dictatorship and revolution; the ecological mecca of a biosphere laid waste by deforestation and urban blight; and an egalitarian, middle-class society blissfully immune to the violent class and racial conflicts that have haunted the region. Arguing that conceptions of Costa Rica as a happy anomaly downplay its rich heritage and diverse population, The Costa Rica Reader brings together texts and artwork that reveal the complexity of the country’s past and present. It characterizes Costa Rica as a site of alternatives and possibilities that undermine stereotypes about the region’s history and challenge the idea that current dilemmas facing Latin America are inevitable or insoluble.

This essential introduction to Costa Rica includes more than fifty texts related to the country’s history, culture, politics, and natural environment. Most of these newspaper accounts, histories, petitions, memoirs, poems, and essays are written by Costa Ricans. Many appear here in English for the first time. The authors are men and women, young and old, scholars, farmers, workers, and activists. The Costa Rica Reader presents a panoply of voices: eloquent working-class raconteurs from San José’s poorest barrios, English-speaking Afro-Antilleans of the Limón province, Nicaraguan immigrants, factory workers, dissident members of the intelligentsia, and indigenous people struggling to preserve their culture. With more than forty images, the collection showcases sculptures, photographs, maps, cartoons, and fliers. From the time before the arrival of the Spanish, through the rise of the coffee plantations and the Civil War of 1948, up to participation in today’s globalized world, Costa Rica’s remarkable history comes alive. The Costa Rica Reader is a necessary resource for scholars, students, and travelers alike.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 383 pages
• Publisher: Duke University Press (November 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0822333724
• ISBN-13: 978-0822333722
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #142,632 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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  #5 in	Books > History > Americas > Central America > Costa Rica
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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars tiquicia and how it got that way, September 22, 2008

By	David A. Baer (Indianapolis, IN USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)

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Rarely does an anthology of original documents of historical value mingled with insightful interpretative essays come together as a coherent work. Steven Palmer and Iván Molina, against those odds, have put the ball in the back of the net with just such a book.

THE COSTA RICA READER'S three-part subtitle (`History, Culture, Politics') is honored along the way with an even touch. Everyone with an interest in Costa Rica as more than a tourist destination with great beaches will find between the covers of this recent collection the stuff that builds insight and understanding. This reviewer lived for sixteen years in 'tiquicia', together with its four million 'ticos', 'nicas', and assorted hangers-on. The West Virginia-sized patch of mountainous land with its sought-after beaches (I rarely found time to visit them) continues to maintain its grip on my soul. I wish this 2004 Duke University Press publication had been available about 1988. It would have rendered easier learning the lessons of tiquicia that had to come the hard, honest way.

No matter, it's here now. The editors guide us through a nuanced qualification of `Costa Rican exceptionalism', finding in the tico experience--whether lived by the indigenous groups who were not quite so few and compliant as the national mythology suggests in the face of conquest and marginalization or by the 19th century coffee lords with their debt to German mercantilism or the 1980s Nicaraguan refugee whose task it is to decide with which of her divergent constituencies to identify herself--deep continuities with the rest of Latin American experience as well as a dollop of the country's celebrated idiosyncrasies.

The seventy-odd pieces are brief, illuminating, and usually excerpted from something larger. Individually and as a collection, they leave the reader wanting more.

Which is not unlike Costa Rica itself in the experience of many sojourners there, many of whom will never go back but who at the same time never manage entirely to leave.

Read by this reviewer on a recent working week back in the land it so effectively describes, THE COSTA RICA READER would be highly recommended at twice the price.

4 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A study at democracy through turmoil, August 18, 2006

By	Bookworm "memogano" (CA, USA) - See all my reviews

By using variouus annotations on short stories the reader lives through many people which have helped create this nation. Events are told in first person that give realism to both their suffering and accomplishments. Interesting information about the United States influence/involement in the Central American zone and the indirect effect on Costa Ricans gives pause to think about current events.

1 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Sociological Reading, February 12, 2007

By	Ronald Mackenzie (San Francisco, Ca. United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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I love sociology. This is a great reader presenting different points of view of a complex society. So you know a little about me to judge the (short) review...I've done immersion study in CR and am a master's level student in the us. US born. Also over 40.