Product Description
Distinctive among the turbulent nations of Central America, Costa Rica enjoys a much-envied reputation for political stability and prosperity.Since abolishing its army in 1948, the "Switzerland of Central America" has experienced unbroken democratic rule and respect for human rights.Yet this small country has also been drastically affected by the debt crisis of the 1980s and ensuing structural adjustment, with resulting increases in poverty and social inequality.

Its economy traditionally based on coffee and bananas, Costa Rica is now among the world's top eco-tourism destinations.The influx of tourists brings vital income and employment but also threatens to spoil the country's spectacular natural beauty.

Costa Rica in Focus is an authoritative and up-to-date guide to this fascinating country.It explores the history, economy, society, environment and culture, and includes the author's expert tips on what to see and do to get the most out of a short trip to the country. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Short & Dry
This is not a "book," per se, but a 75-page "guide" in which facts are presented as statistics in a sort of beaurocratic mode. It's like reading a report from a financial research institute or a forensic accountant!

A MUCH better overview of the country's geology, politics, economy, immigration, agriculture, ecological convservation, and social history is the coffee-table book, "Costa Rica : The Last Country the Gods Made."

PLUS it's a beautiful book. I mean, just look at the cheesy cover of"Costa Rica in Focus"! A much better buy for the money, and more interesting writing all-round!

Outdated
When one purchases a book that says on the inside flap that "This edition first published in 2002," one might expect the information to be up to date. The truth is, the book was written in 1997, six years ago, and has not be updated at all. This is important because information about every subject covered (history and politics, economy, society, environment and eco-tourism, and culture) has changed in critical ways since that time.

That is not to say, that the book is useless - just not accurate in 2003. What I found annoying is the immediacy of the writing and no indication that you are reading anything but current information. Unless you happen to know that Figueres is no longer president of Costa Rica, you would likely assume the facts and figures presented were correct as of 2002.

There have been two Costa Rica presidents elected since the author took fingers to keyboard. Much has changed in Ticoland, but you would never know it from reading this book.

LONG TIME...no book
I'm extremly angry at this entire process because I ordered this book for a very important reasearch paper I'm doing on Costa Rica and was relying on it for much needed information.The book, however, has not yet arrived atmy house!In the ordering sheet is says usually mails within 2-3 days.Ihope the book comes within the next few days so I can still use it, andthen perhaps I will write a review of the actual book!Please send me thebook!

Great Book!
Hi, I am working at ILISA Spanish Language Institute in San Jose, Costa Rica and I just want to say that this book helps our students a lot by giving them helpful inside information and thus by getting to know all theins and outs about this fantastic country. Thanks! ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Countries and Their Cultures, brought to you by Gale®, a part of Cengage Learning, a world leader in e-research and educational publishing for libraries, schools and businesses.The length of the article is 2131 words.The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase.You can view it with any web browser.Covers the broad range of popular religious culture of the United States at the close of the twentieth century. Beliefs, practices, symbols, traditions, movements, organizations, and leaders from the many traditions in the pluralistic American community are represented. Also includes cults and phenomena that drew followers, such as Heaven's Gale and UFOs. ... Read more

Product Description
Many countries in the New World plus elsewhere celebrate the anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the Americas, which occurred on October 12, 1492 in the Julian calendar and October 21, 1492 in the modern Gregorian calendar, as an official holiday. The day is celebrated as Columbus Day in the United States, as Día de la Raza in many countries in the Americas, as Día de las Culturas (Day of the Cultures) in Costa Rica, as Discovery Day in the Bahamas, as Día de la Hispanidad and Fiesta Nacional in Spain, as Día de las Américas (Day of the Americas) in Uruguay and as Día de la Resistencia Indígena (Day of Indigenous Resistance) in Venezuela. These holidays have been celebrated unofficially since the late 18th century, and officially in various countries since the early 20th century. ... Read more

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High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The Radio Club de Costa Rica (RCCR) (n English, Radio Club of Costa Rica) is a national non-profit organization for amateur radio enthusiasts in Costa Rica. Key membership benefits of the RCCR include a QSL bureau for those amateur radio operators in regular communications with other amateur radio operators in foreign countries, and a network to support amateur radio emergency communications. RCCR represents the interests of Costa Rican amateur radio operators before Costa Rican and international regulatory authorities. RCCR is the national member society representing Costa Rica in the International Amateur Radio Union. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Keeper
This book along with the coffee-table book "Costa Rica : The Last Country the Gods Made" should be owned by anyone who loves Costa Rica, even if they think they despise social histories or politics as deathly dull. This book's spirit is undeniable. ... Read more

Product Description
This multicultural activity book celebrates the myriad cultures of Mexico and Central America and their shared ancient Aztec and Mayan roots. For each country, a brief introduction is provided that includes illustrated maps and facts about population and geography. More than 40 projects and three dramatic play scripts explore the interconnectedness of these countries and help children experience aspects of daily life throughout the region including school, work, home, art and poetry, food and agriculture, and special holidays. Activities include embroidering Mayan designs, painting in the Salvadoran style, creating an ofrenda for the Day of the Dead, crafting political puppets, cooking chocobananas, and making piñatas. Engaging sidebars throughout the book provide children with an introduction to the Spanish language. Also included are tips for teachers who want to use the activities in the classroom, complete with more specific age ranges and suggested modifications. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very politicized

I'm an elementary school Spanish teacher, and this book looked wonderful to me at first glance. Yes, there are lots of cute crafts and recipes, and lots of info about geography, history, and culture. However, there's definitely a whiff of PC here, and an anti-American, anti-European,
pro-illegal immigration slant. Lots of material about strikes, unions,
sweatshops, the evils of big business, etc. Yes, the history of Latin America is very complex, and colonization was not a pretty thing, but this book's leftist/socialist slant is excessive. ... Read more

Product Description
In this wide-ranging, multi-disciplinary study, Setha M. Low explores the interplay of space and culture in the plaza, showing how culture acts to shape public spaces and how the physical form of the plaza encodes the social, political, and economic relations within the city. Low centers her study on two plazas in San José, Costa Rica, with comparisons to public spaces in the United States, Europe, Asia, and Latin America. She interweaves ethnography, history, literature, and personal narrative to capture the ambiance and meaning of the plaza. She also uncovers the contradictory ethnohistories of the European and indigenous origins of the Latin American plaza and explains why the plaza is often a politically contested space. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Interesting look at life on the Costa Rican plaza
Professor Setha M. Low's book On The Plaza-The Politics of Public Space and Culture discusses the interrelationship of public space and culture.She primarily focuses on two plazas in San Jose, Costa Rica, the Parque Central and the Plaza de la Cultura, while also making references to other places such as Tenochtitlan in Mexico. Using ethnographic, ethnohistorical, microgeographical, and statistic sampling methods, Low argues that "these culturally and politically charged public spaces are essential to everyday civic life and the maintenance of a participatory democracy."

Low describes the background of Costa Rica, going into its population, ethnic, religious, and urban proportion distribution.She explains the rise and fall of consecutive monocultural economies, such as cacao, tobacco, bananas, and coffee, its tradition of democracy, and the economic nadir in the 1980's.She then goes into the history of San Jose from colonial times to the present, including the devastating effects of the economic downtown and the trade vacuum created by NAFTA.

She then explores the history of the two plazas.Parque Central dates back to 1761, and is the larger and more densely populated of the two.It became a center for merchants, grocers, lottery ticket sellers, and sundry vendors, as well as shoppers and customers.Also, the trend of regulars sitting in the same benches over time gives Parque Central an ambience of traditional social life and hence less contested space between various social groups.

The Plaza de la Cultura, constructed between 1976 and 1982, was built as a contrast to the closed nature of Parque Central, as a more open space for the middle and lower classes.Central to the plaza was the National Theatre with a museum housing the country's Precolumbian gold.Despite its cultural stance, the new plaza became a haven for underage prostitutes, gangs, and drug users.

Plazas also contain social and spatial boundaries as factors that symbolize differences such as nationalities, race, class, and gender between plaza populations within a capitalist system.Low again contrasted the two plazas in San Jose in the framework of social boundaries:

Parque Central:mostly older men, closed space, clique-oriented, has professional prostitutes, lottery ticket, newspaper, food vendors, less foreigners, older.

Plaza de la Cultura:mostly women and children, open space, not clique-oriented, prostitutes who give services for clothes, nurturing relationships,balloon, popcorn, tourist item vendors, more foreigners, younger.

Another more important function of the plaza is for public protest.Low categorizes them in terms of the kinds of protest and their outcomes.Manifest protests such as strikes and demonstrations usually result in the temporary closure of the public space, followed by a reopening where the space is policed to discourage undesirables.An example of that involved the chasing out of shoeshine men from Parque Central.Latent protests involve conflicts that become apparent in terms of design and surrounding buildings and can result in discussions in various media or a plebiscite.Ritual protests, such as parades, normally involve the temporary takeover of space by a protesting group before it is relinquished to the forces nominally in charge of that space.

Taken in the context of protest, Low sees public space as symbolizing political objectives by those, particularly national leaders, who created them--e.g. the Plaza de la Democracia is a legacy to Oscar Arias Sanchez's Nobel Peace Prize-winning efforts for Central American peace.Plazas that don't fulfill the objectives of their creators or are not deemed valuable are either redesigned or denied access to the public.

Constituting twenty-five years of research spanning from 1972 to 1997, Setha Low's exhaustively researched book depicts the essence of the function of the plaza.

Well written, an unbiased observer
I read this book mainly because as a Tico (Costa Rican) I was very surprised somebody would write a whole book about a couple of places that for me are part of my everyday life. Besides having been to the Plazas of Europe and seen on TV the huge plazas that some other Latin American countries (Mexico, Guatemala, Colombia, Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, etc) have I was curious to find out the reason behind her choosing of the Parque Central and the Plaza de la Cultura for this work.
I really liked what I read, she has the benefit of having seen these two public spaces in the city of San Jose, Costa Rica evolve over the last 30 years, from the days we used to consider the Plaza de la Cultura not a nice place to go to, the days when we were outraged by foreign musicians and artist taking over a ground that was supposed to be for the display of our culture till nowadays that the Plaza has turned the city into a sort of fish-tank from where the tourists and US retirees can leisurely watch Costa Ricans as we go about our daily lives.
I truly recommend this book. ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: List of Universities in Costa Rica, Costa Rican General Election, 2010, Costa Rican Center of Science and Culture, La Nación, Escuela San Felipe, Municipal Pérez Zeledón, Brujas F.c., Costa Rica at the 2008 Summer Olympics, A.d. San Carlos, Earth University, Costa Rica National Cricket Team, Museums of Costa Rica, Costa Rica at the 1988 Summer Olympics, Costa Rica at the 2000 Summer Olympics, Santos de Guápiles, Costa Rican American, National Unification Party, Asociación Deportiva Carmelita, Costa Rica at the 1984 Summer Olympics, Estadio Ebal Rodríguez, Recognition of Same-Sex Unions in Costa Rica, Costa Rica at the 1996 Summer Olympics, National Liberation Party, Estadio Lito Pérez, Lincos, Prostitution in Costa Rica, Costa Rica Skies, Costa Rica at the 1992 Summer Olympics, Grupo de Usuarios de Linux de Costa Rica, Costa Rican Dominican Republic - Central America Free Trade Agreement Referendum, 2007, People's Vanguard Party, Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica, Northern Tamandua, Golden-Mantled Howler, Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto, Battle of Santa Rosa, Citizens' Action Party, Country Day School, Guanacaste, Aero Costa Rica, Radio Club de Costa Rica, Costa Rica Women's National Volleyball Team, Universidad Cristiana Del Sur, Supreme Court of Justice Hostage Crisis, Marfil, Orosí, Saint Mary High School, Organization for Tropical Studies, Abangares Mining Company, Social Christian Unity Party, List of Radio Stations in Costa Rica, Confederación Unitaria de Trabajadores, Costa Rica - Russia Relations, Palacio de Los Deportes, Costa Rican Confederation of Workers, Las Cruces Biological Station, Central Del Movimiento de Trabajadores Costarricenses, Roman Catholicism in Costa Rica, Climate of Costa Rica, Asociacion Deportiva Santacruceña, National Insurance Institute, Costa Rica at the 1976 Summer Olympics, Sistema de Información de La Población Objetivo, Federación Costarricense de Fútbol, Finca Bellavista, Limonese...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=5173142 ... Read more

Product Description
Costa Rica has recently come to the attention to global strategic planners.This report puts these executives on the fast track.Ten chapters provide: an overview of how to strategically access this important market, a discussion on economic fundamentals, marketing & distribution options, export and direct investment options, and full risk assessments (political, cultural, legal, human resources).Ample statistical benchmarks and comparative graphs are given. ... Read more