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Unlike most recent studies of the Catholic Church in Latin America, Philip J. Williams analyzes the Church in two very dissimilar political contexts-Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Despite the obvious differences, Williams argues that in both cases the Church has responded to social change in remarkably similar fashion. The efforts of progressive clergy to promote change in both countries have been largely blocked by Church hierarchy, fearful that such change will threaten the Church's influence in society.
The authors trace the evolution of Costa Rican culture and institutions from pre-Columbian times through the late 1990s. Particularly concerned with the change wrought by the economic crisis of the 1980s, they base their portrayal on interviews with Costa Ricans; observations of many facets--from coffee plantation work to the deliberations of the Legislature; and readings of journalists, essayists, poets, historians, and others. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
The Costa Rican revolution of 1948 capped an extended period of social tension and political unrest. This book analyzes the circumstances of 1940–1948 that led to a successful armed uprising. A secondary and related theme is the role of José Figueres Ferrer in marshaling disparate groups into a movement sufficiently cohesive to seize and hold power. In the 1940s the Communists, the Social Democrats (forerunners of the National Liberation Party), and the followers of Rafael Angel Calderón Guardia within the traditional National Republican party competed to lead the middle sector’s demand for modernization. Most accounts of this period have presented the Calderón regime as aristocratic ...
Unlike most books on slavery in the Americas, this social history of Africans and their enslaved descendants in colonial Costa Rica recounts the journey of specific people from West Africa to the New World. Tracing the experiences of Africans on two Danish slave ships that arrived in Costa Rica in 1710, the Christianus Quintus and Fredericus Quartus, the author examines slavery in Costa Rica from 1600 to 1750. Lohse looks at the ethnic origins of the Africans and narrates their capture and transport to the coast, their embarkation and passage, and finally their acculturation to slavery and their lives as slaves in Costa Rica. Following the experiences of girls and boys, women and men, he shows how the conditions of slavery in a unique local setting determined the constraints that slaves faced and how they responded to their condition.
This reader reflects the genesis, scope, and direction of women’s activism in a single Latin American country. It collects the voices of forty-one diverse women who live in Costa Rica, some radical, others strongly conservative, and most ranging inbetween, as they write about their lives, their problems, their aspirations. Unlike the comparative studies of women’s issues that look at several different countries, the reader provides an insider’s view of one small, but quintessentially Latin American, society. These women write of their own experience in organizing and working for change within the Costa Rican community. Some represent groups fitting into traditional “women’s movemen...
During World War II and the immediate postwar era, both the United States and Costa Rica experienced dramatic changes. The United States assumed world leadership and the accompanying responsibilities; Costa Rica encountered far-reaching difficulties that culminated in civil war in 1948 and the rise to power of Jose Figueres.
In the revolutionary movement in Central America during this century, Costa Rica followed a very different course from other countries in the region. This text explores the history of labour and the relationship between the Communist Party and the Catholic Church during the 1930s and 1940s.
Interpreting the History of a Region in Crisis / Robert H. Holden -- Land and Climate: Natural Constraints and Socio-Environmental Transformations / Anthony Goebel McDermott -- Regaining Ground: Indigenous Populations and Territories / Peter H. Herlihy, Matthew L. Fahrenbruch, Taylor A. Tappan -- The Ancient Civilizations / William R. Fowler -- Marginalization, Assimilation, and Resurgence: The Indigenous Peoples since Independence / Wolfgang Gabbert -- The Spanish Conquest? / Laura E. Matthew -- Spanish Colonial Rule / Stephen Webre -- The Kingdom of Guatemala as a Cultural Crossroads / Brianna Leavitt-Alcántara -- From Kingdom to Republics, 1808-1840 / Aaron Pollack -- The Political Econo...