Costa Rica Before Coffee: Society and Economy on the Eve of the Export Boom

By Lowell Gudmundson

Book Overview

Costa Rica Before Coffee centers on the decade of the 1840s, when the impact of coffee and export agriculture began to revolutionize Costa Rican society. Lowell Gudmundson focuses on the nature of the... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0807112747
• ISBN13: 9780807112748
• Release Date: January 1986
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr
• Length: 204 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.0" x 6.5"

Customer Reviews

Intellectual and Enlightening!

I agree with the Costa Rican reviewer, Gudmundson lifts the liberal blinders that coffee barons lead to an agricultural hegemony completely detrimental to the previous ways of life!Another book which lucidly discusses these issues is "Costa Rica: The Last Country The Gods Made" by Colesberry & McLean, in the chapter, "Coffee! Costa Rica's First Revolution." I recommend both books for enlightened reading!

The idea that coffee wreack havoc in our society is wrong

Costa Rica Before Coffee is a book that clearly states that the myth of the land-holding self-sufficient peasant isn't true. Many Costa Ricans believe that before coffee our country was a paradise in which everybody used to own land and where there were no discrepancies in the society. With elegance, statistics and history; Lowell clearly expalins that coffee helped reinforce the democratic model in Costa Rica instead of undermining it.