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	Acculturation and Psychological Adaptation by Vanessa Smith Castro, Hardcover, 270 pages, Novemer 2002 Amazon's Price: $63.95 This volume examines the effects of intercultural contact and acculturation on individuals' feelings of self-regard in Latin American settings, revealing general aspects of the acculturation processes that may apply across groups and specific outcomes. It focuses on the effects of acculturation on self-esteem among adolescents. Opening with an account of relevant theoretical and empirical literature on interethnic contact and acculturation, it represents an "acid test" of the cross-cultural applicability of theory and method largely derived from research on acculturation to North American and European settings. Much research has focused on acculturation processes among ethnic immigrants and ethnic minorities leading to the impression that host or majority groups remain unchangeable during acculturation. By contrast, this volume shows psychological changes occur in all groups involved in the contact, reinforcing the idea that acculturation is a special case of mutual influence. Order Now
	Bananas: An American History by Virginia Scott Jenkins, Paperback, 232 pages, September 2000 Amazon's Price: $13.56 List Price: $16.95 You Save: $3.39 (20%) In this wide-ranging history of the most popular and least expensive fruit in the United States, Virginia Scott Jenkins shows how developments in international trade and transportation enabled banana shipments from the Caribbean to reach even the most remote North American towns. She describes how public health campaigns and marketing innovations enticed Americans to eat more and more of the fruit that came in its own "germ-free" packaging. She uses bananas to illustrate changes in diet and etiquette, shows how bananas symbolized the supposed danger or romance of the tropics, and visits the International Banana Festival in Fulton, Kentucky, which in its heyday touted banana consumption as a weapon against communism - and featured a one-ton banana pudding. Order Now
	Costa Rica in Focus : A Guide to the People, Politics and Culture by Tjabel Daling, Paperback, August 2001 Our Price: $10.36 List Price: $12.95 You Save $2.59 (20%) 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. Though its economy was 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, the economy, the society, the environment, the culture and where to go and what to see. Order Now
	Costa Rica Spanish Phrasebook by Thomas B. Kohnstamm, Paperback, 260 pages, June 2000 Our Price: $7.99 The author does an amazing job of including the nuances of the Costa Rican dialect while offering interesting cultural insight and traveling tips. This book is perhaps a little over the head of your average tour group or package tourist. However, for those who see travel as a way or life and as an art form, this is an indispensible text. Costa Rica is a travel hot spot and sees greater numbers of foreign visitors each year. This phrasebook will help the reader to respect the local culture and conduct themselves in an efficient, responsible manner while traveling in Costa Rica. Order Now
	From Toads to Queens: Transvestism in a Latin American Setting by Jacobo Schifter, Hardcover, April 1999 Our Price: 39.95 From Toads to Queens documents the lives of individuals and subverts the simplistic division of people into traditional psychiatric categories, a crucial first step in devising ways to decrease the rates of HIV infection among specific populations. Order Now
	The Costa Ricans by Richard Biesanz, Paperback, 250 pages, Reprint edition, January 1988 Our Price: 13.95 Associated with the country for more than forty years, the authors insightfully describe and interpret the character and customs of the people of Costa Rica. Their sympathetic account challenges the myths of equitable income distribution, broad-scale landowning patterns, and Costa Rica as Utopia. In this sense, Costa Rica resembles much of the rest of Latin America. The Biesanzes note, however, that Costa Rica does differ from its neighbors in its peaceful settlement of political disputes, in the commitment to education, and in its blunting of class differences. Order Now
	The Costa Rican Women's Movement by Ilse Abshagen Leitinger, Paperback, 368 pages, April 1997 Our Price: 22.95 The Costa Rican Women's Movement: A Reader provides an insider's view of the women's movement in one small but quintessential Latin American society. It collects the voices of forty-one diverse women (some radical, others strongly conservative, and most ranging in between) as they write about their lives and their experiences working for change within the Costa Rican community. Their voices resonate with those involved in the women's movement worldwide and provide invaluable first-hand accounts for students in women's studies courses. The articles are arranged thematically and include definitions of feminism in Costa Rica, women in Costa Rican history, legal equality, discrimination, women in the arts, and the status of women's studies. Brief biographies of each author underscore the leadership of Costa Rican women in Latin American feminism. The founders and editors of Mujer, one of the most influential feminist journals in Latin America, are among the authors represented here. The Costa Rican Women's Movement: A Reader is an invaluable addition to the growing body of international feminist literature and history. Order Now
	Culture and Customs of Costa Rica by Chalene Helmuth, Hardcover, 160 pages, June 30, 2000 Our Price: 45.00 Costa Rica, the spectacularly beautiful Latin American nation, stands out from its neighbors in its political climate, economic stability, and social progressiveness. Culture and Customs of Costa Rica is a superlative introduction to the modern Costa Rica, which Costa Ricans compare in many ways to the United States. Helmuth, who spent her formative years in Costa Rica, provides an outstanding overview of this unusual and dynamic nation's place in Latin America. Featured topics include Costa Rica's: Legacy of social reform; Religion; Social customs; Media; Literature; Art and the performing arts. Written with the highest scholarly standards, but easily accessible to students and general readers, this well-written source goes far beyond the travel guide fare in providing in-depth information on this fascinating country. Order Now
	From Popular Medicine to Medical Populism: Doctors, Healers, and Public Power in Costa Rica, 1800-1940 by Steven Paul Palmer, Hardcover, February 2003 Our Price: 69.95 The history of medical practice in Costa Rica from the late colonial era—when none of the fifty thousand inhabitants had access to a titled physician, pharmacist, or midwife—to the 1940s, when the figure of the qualified medical doctor was part of everyday life for many of Costa Rica’s nearly one million citizens. It is the first book to chronicle the history of all healers, both professional and popular, in a Latin American country during the national period. The author breaks with the view of popular and professional medicine as polar opposites— where popular medicine is seen as representative of the authentic local community and as synonymous with oral tradition and religious and magical beliefs and professional medicine as advancing neocolonial interests through the work of secular, trained academicians. Arguing that there was significant and formative overlap between these two forms of medicine, Palmer shows that the relationship between practitioners of each was marked by coexistence, complementarity, and dialogue as often as it was by rivalry. Palmer explains that while the professionalization of medical practice was intricately connected to the nation-building process, the Costa Rican state never consistently displayed an interest in suppressing the practice of popular medicine. In fact, it persistently found both tacit and explicit ways to allow untitled healers to practice. Using empirical and archival research to bring people (such as the famous healer or curandero Professor Carlos Carbell), events, and institutions (including the Rockefeller Foundation) to life, From Popular Medicine to Medical Populism demonstrates that it was through everyday acts of negotiation among agents of the state, medical professionals, and popular practitioners that the contours of Costa Rica’s modern, heterogeneous health care system were established. Order Now
	Peasants Against Globalization : Rural Social Movements in Costa Rica by Marc Edelman, Paperback - 330 pages (December 1999) Our Price: $23.95 This book tells the story of how small farmers responded to a free-market onslaught that devastated one of the Western Hemisphere's most advanced social-democratic welfare states. In the early 1980s, the Latin American debt crisis struck Costa Rica, leading to major cutbacks in the social programs that had permitted the rural poor to attain an acceptable standard of living and a modicum of dignity. Order Now
	The Political Ecology of Bananas: Contract Farming, Peasants, and Agrarian Change in the Eastern Caribbean by Lawrence S. Grossman, Paperback, 320 pages, July 1998 Amazon's Price: $19.95 This book covers the banana culture of Costa Rica, including topics ranging from "The History and Contemporary Context of the Windward Islands Banana Industry", "Life in a Banana-Producing Village", and "The Environmental Question." Order Now
	Public Sex in a Latin Society by Jacobo Schifter, Paperback, 192 pages, January 2000 Our Price: $13.96 List Price: $19.95 You Save: $5.99 (30%) Public Sex in a Latin Society provides you with a shocking analysis of how public sex in Latin America has become part of the Latin economy without advancing sexual liberation or social equality. This provocative and intelligent book will give you a better understanding of Latin American sexual culture. Order Now
	The Ticos: Culture and Social Change in Costa Rica by Mavis Hiltunen Biesanz, Paperback, 295 pages, November 1998 Our Price: $19.95 Heading for Costa Rica? Take The Ticos along with a guidebook. The Ticos is a fascinating and beautifully written account of Costa Rica, past and present. The authors bring to bear on the subject their more than half-century of residence in the country, as well as their formidable anthropological expertise. Beyond what The Ticos tells us about Costa Rica, this book is also extremely valuable for its examination of the effects of structural adjustment economic policies imposed on this country by the international financial institutions and by the United States (through bilateral agreements) as conditions for loans. These policies are having the same deleterious effects worldwide on developing countries. Normally, discussions of the impact of structural adjustment policies are abstract and academic. The Ticos, in contrast, provides us with a concrete and specific assessment of the "fall out" institution by institution, free of technical jargon. For foreign residents of Costa Rica (and prospective residents) this book is a "must". But even short-term tourists will benefit from reading it. Order Now
	The West Indians of Costa Rica: Race, Class, and the Integration of an Ethnic Minority by Ronald L. Harpelle, Paperback, 264 pages, May 2001 Our Price: $70.00 The Jamaicans, Barbadians, and other West Indians who migrated to Costa Rica at the turn of the twentieth century found themselves in a country that prides itself on its Spanish and "white settler" origins. In The West Indians of Costa Rica Ronald Harpelle examines the ways in which people of African descent reacted to key issues of community and cultural survival from 1900 to 1950. Harpelle focuses on Caribbean migrants and their adaptation to life in a Hispanic society, particularly in Limón, where cultures and economies often clashed. Dealing with such issues as Garveyism, Afro-Christian religious beliefs, and class divisions within the West Indian community, The West Indians of Costa Rica sheds light on a community that has been ignored by most historians and on events that define the parameters of the modern Afro-Costa Rican identity, revealing the complexity of a community in transition. Harpelle shows that the men and women who ventured to Costa Rica in search of opportunities in the banana industry arrived as West Indian sojourners but became Afro-Costa Ricans. The West Indians of Costa Rica is a story about choices: who made them, when, how, and what the consequences were. Order Now
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