Reviews for Costa Rica in Pictures (Visual Geography Series)

The average rating for Costa Rica in Pictures (Visual Geography Series) based on 2 reviews is 3 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2015-05-02 00:00:00 Jhon Pere Senegal was interesting to read about because it appears to be a country that is in better shape than many of its neighbors. Unlike the other books, I was actually most interested in the history section, to see if I could figure out why. It isn't that the region was not affected by the slave trade, although unlike interior regions of Africa where people were only being captured, in Senegal they were being captured and sold, so some local tribes benefited from the trade. But I think that there were local tribes in other regions that did some of the capturing, so that's not the only reason. It isn't that they were unaffected by colonialism, either, but at least according to this book, it didn't sound as oppressive as in other countries. The French appointed General Faidherbe to rule and he did a decent job at setting up a functional infrastructure, something that colonialists (even and sometimes especially the French) did not do in other colonies/countries. There was also a noticeable lack of crazy dictators and military coups. Starting around the time of independence, Senghor was a leader of a rather benevolent Socialist Party (sounded more like European democratic socialism than Soviet-style to me), and was president for about 20 years. One of his mindblowing strategies was to work *with* opponents on compromises rather than fight them. Isn't that crazy? And look where it got them--while there is still quite a bit of dissent in the Casamance region of southern Senegal, the country has not been war-torn for several decades like, say, Chad. Later, a Democratic Party president was elected, and commerce was privatized, leading to even more affluence & stability. In other news, this book took me a maddeningly (according to David) long time to read, probably because my enthusiasm for the series is waning. I think I'm going to take a little break, and go back to it when it calls again.

Review # 2 was written on 2016-11-07 00:00:00 Richard Horton Very informative and instructive book about Senegal, one of the more developed countries in West Africa, its history, culture and industry, as well as its prognosis for the future.