History 4393: Field Studies in American History

The Books

Required A good map of the country: Costa Rica 3rd edition, (ITBM, 1998)

Evans, Sterling, The Green Republic: A Conservation History of Costa Rica (University of Texas, 1999).

Darryl Cole-Christensen, A Place in the Rain Forest (University of Texas Press, 1997). 

Eduardo Galeano, Genesis (W.W. Norton, 1998).

Donald Worster, "The Shaky Ground of Sustainable Development," in The Wealth of Nature (Oxford University Press, 1993) pp. 142-155. or, you'll probably want to check it out from your library or interlibrary loan it and read the necessary chapter. It is a good book though, and should be in your environmental history library.

Tom Griffiths and Libby Robin, Ecology and Empire: Environmental History of Settler Societies (Keele University Press, 1997), pp. 185-199. This book is mostly about Australia, but has some articles more directly related to Latin America. A good book to have, but also a good book to get from the library or through ILL for the one chapter.
Recommended 

Les Beletsky, Costa Rica: The Ecotraveler's Wildlife Guide (Academic Press, 1998). A very good introductory field guide. Recommended for the student traveler to put in their bag--unless you are really interested in birds, then go with the Stiles an Skutch book below.

Fabian Dobles, The Stories of Tata Mundo (Editorial de la Universidad de Costa Rica, 1998).
A note on buying the books Amazon.com not only ships books fast with good prices but, at no additional cost to you, it gives up to 15% of the prices of books bought using links to the particular books featured on this page to the new QERC Student Travel Scholarship fund. Through Amazon.com contributions and contributions by other QERC supporters, SNU-QERC hopes to provide needy students with travel grants to our tropical learning experience. To maximize your contribution to the continuance of QERC, just click on the highlighted title, which will take you to the Amazon.com page where the book is available for order, add it to your shopping cart (or one-click shopping list), come back to our page and follow the link to the next book. So, you can buy your books anywhere but, please do consider using our Amazon.com links.

Reading Essays (15%): 

Each day you will begin the day by writing the location, date, time, atmospheric conditions (temperature, % cloud cover, cloud type, relative humidity, and barometric pressure). Keep a running log then of what you see, hear, smell, taste, etc throughout the day. Be sure to record the time throughout the day--it helps to keep things in order. If you want, QERC will provide at a small cost several of the instruments you might use to record that information. Contact Dr. Williams for information on the field kits.

Some people, and I recommend it, but don't require it, then sit down in the evening and rewrite their field notes into a brief narrative of the day. It is a valuable resource and heirloom.

I need to see your field notes or narrative before our departure from Costa Rica. Discovery Exercises (15%): Each day I will have an assignment sheet listing things you should observe on that day.  You will need to write a brief essay that processes your observations into hypotheses that you will continue to test throughout the course.  By the end of the course you will have a significant amount of material useful in completing the class project. Mythos|Logos|Ethos (15%) Collect from your readings and interactions with people along the way stories that express a pre-scientific understanding of human/nature interactions, scientific/factual information, and self-reflections of your interaction with nature while experiencing tropical nature in Costa Rica.  Write two Mythos|Logos|Ethos papers during the course of your experience in Costa Rica.  You will receive some examples of this kind of writing from me when you enroll from the course.  You can also acquire a copy of N. Scott Momaday's The Way to Rainy Mountain (New Mexico, 1977) for a very good example of the kind of product I expect from this exercise.  Eduardo Galeano's book will give you a good selection of tropical myths in the first several pages.  Fabian Dobles's Tata Mundo stories are also useful for the kinds of stories that will be useful in the mythos section.  Your field guides and the historical treatments in the required reading will provide useful information for the logos section, and your personal experience will guide you in developing the ethos section. Class Project (15%): Design a viable strategy that balances the social, economic, and biological elements of the tropics. The strategy must respect human rights, demonstrate an awareness of symbiotic relationships among the various components of the tropical ecosystem (including the human component), demonstrate a capacity for sustainability, take into consideration the existence of a larger world and assume interaction with it (this means you must be aware of a global economic system with a history of colonial and neo-colonial economic policies), exhibit an appreciation for historical development of human/nature interaction (economic, cultural, agricultural, etc.). The project may be done by the class as a whole, individually, or by small groups of individuals separately. The project should be completed by the end of the trip, or soon thereafter (with the consent of the instructor).  I expect well-written narrative with appropriate documentation. Attitude (15%): Traveling in groups can be fantastic or it can be awful. The difference between the two is mostly attitude. I expect my students to have a good attitude. That means: be enthusiastic, be cooperative, be optimistic, be forgiving.  I believe that regardless of ones faith tradition treating others as you want to be treated is a great rule to live by. Let's follow it. Of course everybody has a bad day, but let's not to punish others for it. All these attitudinal characteristics are important for living close together for two weeks. The most important attitude to have, though, is: "I want to learn."

Suggested, or Supplemental, Reading

		Travel Guides Christopher Baker, Costa Rica Handbook (Moon Travel Books, 1999) Les Beletsky, Costa Rica: The Ecotraveler's Wildlife Guide (Academic Press, 1998). A very good introductory field guide. Recommended for the student traveler to put in their bag--unless you are really interested in birds, then go with the Stiles and Skutch book below. Stephen Benz, Green Dreams: Travels in Central America (Lonely Planet, 1998)  Beatrice Blake, The New Key to Costa Rica (Ulysses, 1998) Ree Strange Sheck, Costa Rica: Adventures in Nature (1998) For Kids Dorothy Patent, Quetzal: Sacred Bird of the Cloud Forest Roland Smith, Jaguar
		Culture: Books about people and history as well as a few novels

Rosita Arvigo, Sastun : My Apprenticeship With a Maya Healer (Harper Collins, 1995)

Thomas Belt, The Naturalist in Nicaragua (Chicago, 1985)

Stephen Connely Benz, Guatemalan Journey (University of Texas Press, 1996).

Mavis Biesanz, Richard Biesanz, and Karen Biesanz, The Ticos: Culture an Social Change in Costa Rica (Lynn Rienner Press, 1999). Written by sociologists, this is a good introduction to Costa Rican cultural history.

Anthony Coates, Central America: A Natural and Cultural History

Alfred Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (Cambridge University Press, 1991). A classic regarding European biological influences on the world.

Stuart Fiedel, Prehistory of the Americas (Cambridge, 1992)

Bartolomew Las Casas, The Devastation of the Indies: A Brief Account

Jonathan Maslow. Footsteps in the Jungle: Adventures in the Scientific Exploration of the American Tropics. (Chicago, Ill.: Ivan R. Dee, 1996.)

Rigoberta Menchu, I, Rigoberta Menchu: An Indian Woman in Guatamala (1987)

Mark Plotkin, Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice (Penguin, 1994)

Popol Vuh: The Mayan Book of the Dawn of Life

Salmon Rushdie, The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journey (Henry Holt, 1998)

Payson Sheets and Brian McKee, eds, Archeology, Volcanism, and Remote Sensing in the Arenal Region, Costa Rica (University of Texas Press, 1994)

Alfred H. Siemens, A Favored Place: San Juan Wetlands, Central Vera Cruz, A.D. 500 to the Present (University of Texas Press, 1998). 

Lane Simonian, Defending the Land of the Jaguar: A History of Conservation in Mexico (University of Texas Press, 1995), pp. 9-44. The first two chapters discuss the indigeneous and colonial Spanish attitudes and actions toward nature. Discussions on the Mayans are useful in as much as Mayan influenced cultures in Mesoamerica came to bear in Costa Rica. 

Jorge Ventocilla, Jeracilioa Herrera, and Valerio Nunez, Plants and Animals in the Life of the Kuna (Unversity of Texas Press, 1995).

Robert Voeks, Sacred Leaves of Candomble: African Magic, Medicine, and Religion in Brazil (University of Texas Press, 1997).

David J. Weber and Jane M. Rausch, eds. Where Cultures Meet: Frontiers in Latin American History. Jaguar Books on Latin America, no 6.. (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1994.) 
Deforestation Susan E. Place, ed. Tropical Rainforests: Latin American Nature and Society in Transition. Jaguar Books on Latin America, No. 2. (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1993). A book mostly about Amazon rainforests, but with applications to the entire tropics. Read a review?

Douglas Ian Stewart, After the Trees: Living on the Transamazon Highway (University of Texas Press, 1994).

Warren Dean, With Broadax and Firebrand: The Destruction of the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (University of California Press, 1997 reprint ed.).
Coffee Deborah Sick, Farmers of the Golden Bean: Costa Rican Households and the Global Coffee Economy (Northern Illinois Unversity Press, 1999)

Robert G. Williams. States and Social Evolution: Coffee and the Rise of National Governments in Costa Rica (University of North Carolina, 1994).

Ilse Abshagen Leitinger, ed. The Costa Rican Women's Movement: A Reader. Pitt Latin American Series. (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, l997.) Read a review?

Jeffery M. Paige. Coffee and Power: Revolution and the Rise of Democracy in Central America. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Read a review?

Llowell Gudmundson, Costa Rica Before Coffee : Society and Economy on the Eve of the Export Boom (Louisiana State University Press, 1986)
Bananas Aviva Chomsky, West Indian Workers and the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica 1870-1940 (Louisiana State University Press, 1996). 

Trevor Purcell, Banana Fallout : Class, Color, and Culture Among West Indians in Costa Rica. Afro-American Culture and Society, Vol 12. (UCLA Center for African American Studies Publications, 1993). 

Clyde Stephens, Bananeros in Central America: True Stories of the Tropics (Banana Books, ).

Lester D. Langley and Thomas Schoonover. The Banana Men: American Mercenaries and Entrepreneurs in Central America, 1880-1930. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1995.) This book deals with the development of banana economies in Nicaragua and Honduras, but may shed light on the development of banana agriculture and the politics that did and did not develop in response to Caribbean banana agriculture in Costa Rica. Read a review? Another book like this, again not Costa Rican but good for comparative purposes might be

Paul J. Dosal. Doing Business with the Dictators: A Political History of United Fruit in Guatemala, 1899-1944. (Wilmington, Del.: Scholarly Resources, 1993). Read a review?

Nature Books/Field Guides

Gary Stiles and Alexander Skutch, A Guide to the Birds of Costa Rica (Cornell, 1989). The book on the birds of Costa Rica. We'll see many of them on the trip. If you want to be really cool and do something really useful for yourself on the trip--especially if you are a birder--buy this book well in advance, cut out the color plates and take them to a book binder who will bind them in a thin hardback. The result is an easy to carry and consult set of plates.

Daniel H. Janzen, Costa Rican Natural History (Chicago, 1983) esp. pp. 1-35. The authoritative field guide. The format of this book lends it to be a desk or coffee table book. Great information, but bulky and heavy. It is worth buying if you are interested in doing further research in Costa Rican Environmental History for the nature part. The first 35 pages are worth reading in the library before the trip. 

John Kricher, A Neotropical Companion (Princeton University Press, 1997). A really nice narrative discussion of New World tropical ecosystems.

Francois Feer (Illustrator), Louise H. Emmons, and Fran C. Feer, Neotropical Rainforest Mammals (University of Chicago Press, 1997).

John Terbough, Diversity and the Tropical Rain Forest (Scientific American Library, No 38) (W.H. Freeman, 1992).
Books dealing with other places or processes in the world for comparative reading Tim F. Flannery Throwim Way Leg (Grove/Atlantic, 1999).

Dan Flores, Horizontal Yellow (New Mexico, 1999)

Human/Nature : Biology, Culture, and Environmental History
by John P. Herron (Editor), Andrew G. Kirk (Editor) (University of New Mexico Press, 1999)

Thomas O'Donohue Anam Cara: A Celtic Book of Wisdom