i had to read it for an assignment, so i didn't really enjoy it. if i had to read it for fun, i probably would have enjoyed it more. it was well spoken.

Sterling Evans' The Green Republic is a fascinating account of the development of the NP of Costa Rica. I've visited most of the parks in CR and after reading The Green Republic I have a greater appreciation for them and high admiration for the Costa Rican individuals and non-natives who through hard work, luck and perserverence have created a system of parks unique to Latin America and the world.

I particularly enjoyed the anecdotes about the indivuduals and also the tremendous amount of facts the book contains--facts that have a purpose as they paint a complex picture of a country struggling to do the right thing despite enormous pressures to cash in for the easy dollar. The book perhaps does read a bit dry at times, but the overall story is well told and worth the time and money. Great book!

These instight guides are not the type you travel with in your pocket to refer to when on location, but are a great source of information for pre-trip planning or armchair traveling. The strong points of these guides are, the looks into the society, culture and a better understanding of the people and their lives that you will be amongst when there. A Chapter on Flamenco, one on bullfighting: the chapters that cover the locations give one a good feel for the area, to decide if it would be of interest to you to visit on your trip to southern Spain. Enjoyable books with good photographs.

Let's say you've decided to plunk down about $3000 to take a trip to Seville this summer. Your friends who have been to Spain tell you that you "must" see the Alhambra, or Gibraltar, or some other equally famous place, while you are there. Everyone has heard of Spain, of course, but you realize that you really don't know very much about the country or where the things are that you might want to see. If you're planning to do the trip on your own, finding out where to go and what to see is essential, but, even if you are on a guided tour, it really helps to know a little ahead of time about what you will be seeing, and makes the trip so much more enjoyable. Suppose I told you that for less than $25 you could have a team of experts, people who have spent a lot of time working or traveling in the area where you are going, who have even written guide books about it, come to your home at your convenience to show you beautiful pictures of the area and its inhabitants, tell you details not only about the places and the sights you should see, but also about the history of the region, the people, the food they eat and their customs. Would it be worth the cost? You bet! That's really what Insight Guides do for you.

When I recently found myself in that position, the first book I bought was the 1998 version of the Insight Guide to Southern Spain. This was not by accident. I've used the Insight Guides before and have enjoyed them very much. I'd always been a Lonely Planet kind of guy until I bought my first Insight Guide: Chile. My initial reaction to the book was that it was a lot of money to spend for a picture book kind of guide that didn't even have the detailed type of hotel and restaurant listings that I was used to in the Lonely Planet guides. But I bit the bullet and bought it anyway and, surprise, I really liked it and found it very useful. I've since followed it up with Boston, Mexico City, and now Southern Spain. What I like about the Insight Guides is that they are eminently readable and give you a fantastic overview of the area. They're short on the nuts and bolts (which hotel to choose, where to go for dinner, detailed maps of the cities) at which the Lonely Planet guides excel, but with both, you have it covered. This is the guide you read beforehand and when you are planning your day's activities, the Lonely Planet is the one you carry around to figure out where you are staying or eating, and how to get where you are going.

Southern Spain, as do all the Insight Guides, starts off with a history of the area, Andalucía, sometimes called "the Soul of Spain." If history's not your thing, you don't have to sleep in class, you can just skip that section, or return to it later to pick up a little perspective. That's followed by brief articles on subjects such as Bullfighting Heroes, Flamenco music and dance, Sherry makers, and "A Cook's Tour." The heart of the book is descriptions of the many places to visit and things to see. Included are 17 pages on Seville, 13 pages on Córdoba, 15 pages on Granada and the Alhambra, Gibraltar, Morocco, and even a narration of a walking tour through Andalucía. The descriptions are informative, without being drawn out, and very descriptive, evoking an excitement in experiencing the reality. I was enchanted by this description from the section on Granada:

"To enter the Albaicín, which one should first do without any formal list of places to see, is to leave civilisation as we know it behind. Or, rather to enter a civilised world where the smells of jasmin, of damp, of heat or of cooking take over from car fumes, where the dominant sound is burbling water and where mules are still used to carry bricks and bags of cement, not by courtesy of the tourist board but simply because they are the only means of transport suitable for the narrow, steep streets."

At the back of the book is Insight's rather brief attempt to give you "Travel Tips": 33 pages of information on addresses and hours of museums, restaurants, hotels, and the like. This may be of some help to you if you just have the one guidebook, but, frankly, you'd be much better off with another guidebook. Lonely Planet, one of the Insight Pocket Guides, or something like Michelin or Fodor's would suffice. This book is best used according to the proposition underlying all of the Insight Guides: that, with insight into a country's people and culture, visitors can both enhance their own experience and be accepted more easily by their hosts. In that, it does it's job admirably.

Buen viaje!

La Casa de Lila presents the results of a sociological study done in a Costa Rican house of prostitution for male homosexuals. Lila's house is a rather particular center. Most of the clients are older men who seek out young boys; some of the prostitutes are as young as 10. The prostitutes are "cacheros" a term describing men who provide sexual services for homosexuals but consider themselves as either straight or bisexual. They have girlfriends, wives and many of them have children. Most have problems with alcohol, crack cocaine and gambling. It is the necessity for money to support these activities that motivates their work.

The book's main focus is the question of sexual identity. How do a group of heterosexual men deal with the reality that their livelihood depends upon prostituting themselves with other men? Schifter concludes that sexual identity is determined by power relations and not by what one does and with whom. Men are dominant, women are submissive. One can be dominant (masculine) while sodomizing another man; the person sodomized becomes feminine. Sex expresses the social dynamic of male oppression.

Schifter's team interviewed 25 prostitutes (aged 13 to 27) during the first half of 1997. Lila, the (male) homosexual, who runs the house was also interviewed and the investigators obviously spent time observing the activities at the casa. Schifter is a prominent AIDS and gay rights activist in Central America. While I find that some of his other work is nearly impossible to read, this book is quite readable. [I should note that I read the Spanish edition of La Casa de Lila. ]

Clients were not interviewed in this book and this is a major weakness. Schifter recognizes that the stories told by the cacheros were not very accurate. I would have appreciated greater detail on exactly how the house functioned. What time did it open? How did clients come? How were the cacheros scheduled? What exactly did they do? It might have helped to describe in detail a few days in the life of one of the cacheros. There was no information on venereal diseases among the prostitutes, the relationship of the casa to the local police, government officials and a wealth of other topics that are of interest. This information might have served as a reality check on the interviews.

Despite these shortcomings, this book remains a well written and well researched study on the construction of a sexual identity among a very particular group of male prostitutes.

Jacobo Schifter spent months conducting interviews inside a house of male prostitution in San Jose, Costa Rica to research this book. The result is a fascinating and consciousness-raising report, not only about male protitution, but about the Latin American sexual discourse in general--attitudes towards homosexuality (all of the prostitutes claim that they're straight and many seem to fear homosexuality), realtions between the sexes, awareness and practice of AIDS and safe sex, etc. Some of the interviews are reprinted in their entirety. The owner of the brothel, Lila, has a story worthy of a book itself. The most informed and interesting book on Costa Rican culture I have read.

I don't get it. Francisco Dias, the father, works his big farm in Portugal with the help of his many sons. He drives them out of bed at 4 in the morning and there they are, shovelling manure. Only the youngest, Walter, refuses. He won't shovel. And he gets away with it. Walter and his teenage daughter are the main characters of this book. She pines for her father, whom she has rarely ever seen. He keeps circling the globe, sending letters with beautifully drawn birds in them. Everybody wonders why he draws these birds. And everybody talks about his army blanket that he uses to sleep on, either alone or with female company. Everybody is shocked about this. But when his daughter grows up and spends her nights around town, nary an eyebrow is raised. Everybody has either beautiful or bad thoughts, and the landscape is poetic, too. This has nothing to do with a Portuguese dirt farmer. Nor with a normal human condition.

I just don't get it.

Lidia Jorge was born in Algarve, which has now become like the French Riviera, invaded by tourism. Yet her childhood was formed and informed in a different era, of simplicity, symbols and revelations. I had the privilege to visit with her for ONCE SHE WAS A CHILD, my book of encounters with women writers telling the story of childhood in times of upheaval (now a completed manuscript). Before our meeting I read one short story of hers only and found it captivating. I strongly recommend getting hold of every book of hers that finally gets translated. It's the best financial investment as you'll go back to them again and again, as if you bought a thousand books for the price of one! (How many so called "best sellers" qualify as such?)

This books is a useful and interesting introduction to what contemporary NT scholarship has to say about Jesus' resurrection, including its importance in Christian theology, its historicity, and the perspectives of other faiths. Here is the table of contents:

Preface
Chapter 1. The Resurrection in Contemporary New Testament Scholarship by John M.G. Barclay
Chapter 2. The Resurrection in Contemporary Systematic Theology by Gareth Jones
Chapter 3. The Baseless Fabric of a Vision by Michael Goulder
Chapter 4. History and the Reality of the Resurrection by Wolfhart Pannenberg
Chapter 5. The Resurrection of Christ: Hope for the World by Jurgen Moltmann
Chapter 6. Between the Cherubim: The Empty Tomb and the Empty Throne by Rowan Williams
Chapter 7. Christ's Body in its Fullness: Resurrection and the Lives of Saints by David McCarthy Matzko
Chapter 8. Living in Christ: Story, Resurrection, and Salvation by Gerard Loughlin
Chapter 9. Sexuality and the Resurrection of the Body: Reflections in a Hall of Mirrors by Tina Beattie
Chapter 10. The Resurrection, the Holy Spirit and the World Religions by Gavin D'Costa
Chapter 11. The Resurrection of Jesus and the Qur'an by David Marshall
Chapter 12. The Resurrection of Jesus: A Jewish View by Dan Cohn-Sherbok
Chapter 13. The Resurrection and Buddhism by Rupert Gethin List of Contributors
Index

As a non-Christian who is primarily interested in the arguments for and against the historicity of a literal, bodily resurrection, I found some chapters of much more interest than others. The first chapter, by John Barclay, was probably the most useful to me in the entire book. Barclay summarizes the major arguments for and against the empty tomb. As Barclay makes clear, some of the arguments on each side are clearly stronger than others. For example, as an argument *against* the story, Barclay points out that the fact that Mark ends with the silence of the women is not unassailable. Conversely, as an argument *for* the story, the fact that there is no known tomb veneration is weak, for that fact is just as probable on the assumption that the location of the tomb was unknown to the disciples as it is on the assumption that the tomb was empty.

Also especially relevant to the historicity debate were the articles by Christian-turned-atheist NT scholar Michael Goulder and theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. Goulder argues against the empty tomb story and for the hypothesis that the original post-mortem 'appearances' of Jesus were nothing more than subjective visions. In contrast, Pannenberg argues for the reality of a historical, literal resurrection from the dead.

This collection of essays by younger and more established theologians (including G. Jones, G. D'Costa G. Loughlin, Moltmann, R. Williams, Pannenberg, Cohn-Sherbok) examines thought on the Resurrection of Jesus from a variety of perspectives: NT Studies, various theological approaches, and four perspectives from other faith traditions. This is a most useful collection for someone wanting to understand both the contemporary debate and some of the new directions theologians are taking with regard to the Resurrection, its place in Christian theology, and its "historicity." For upper-level undergraduates, church professionals, and theologians.

This book is expensive, rather short, and at times not well-translated. Considering, though, that it is one of the only works that can be purchased on Portugal and Salazar, I must recommend it. It is a decent introduction to the 20th century Portuguese nation, its various governmental phases, and the political movements and ideologies which existed. The overthrow of the Parliamentary Republic and the subsequent "28th of May" Military Dictatorship, which would go on to rule for an astonishing 48 years, are briefly covered. The policies, characteristics, and origins of the Salazar regime are compared with its European counterparts. The study finds that the Salazarist state, with its national emphasis on "God, Fatherland, Family", is more in line with the regimes of Franco and Dollfuss than with those of Il Duce or Der Fuhrer. It is shown how the seminarian-turned-academic civilian Dr. Salazar is strongly anti-fascist, although ultraright nationalism would sometimes be displayed for different purposes early on. The traditonalist and conservative nature of the state, in its rejection of fascism and in its reliance on elite institutions such as the Church and the subordinated military, are closely examined and make for a quick, fascinating read. With all its faults, the book nonetheless gives a very interesting history of Salazarism - an ideology of common sense that toppled the pagan and liberal order and saved Portugal.

António Costa Pinto is Portugal's leading authority on contemporary Portuguese political history, and this book is about as good an introduction to this theme as you are likely to get, at least in English.

Costa Pinto's belief is that Portuguese authoritarianism has less in common with Italian fascism (to which is is usually compared) than it has to do with social-catholicism and the clerico-fascism that was to be found in pre-Nazi Austria. He takes great care to justify his opinion. This book is not intended to be a history book.

That said, however, he does provide an overview of Portuguese authoritarianism - mainly as a means of illustration. If you are looking for a narrative (even an academic narrative) of the Military Dictatorship or the New State, then this is most definitely not the book for you. If, on the other had, you are seeking a coherent and competent application of political scientific and sociological theories of authoritarianism to the Portuguese, and you are not too keen on yet another 'structural' analysis, then you should read this book. Caution is urged, however, for those who are not au fait with the story of inter-war Portugal, as this book has not been written for you. It does assume that the reader has at least a basic knowledge of who did what to whom and when. As for the why...? Well this book will provide you with some plausible and convincing suggestions.

The writer Eça de Queiroz (1846-1900) introduced naturalism and realism in Portuguese literature and is considered the Portuguese "Zola." His novels (the most important ones are "The Crime of Father Amaro," and "The Maias") are characterized for their ironic tone, descriptive style, and criticisms of the social, political, and religious institutions of his time, most precisely in his native country, Portugal. In his novels there are no heroes and the author remains emotionally detached from his characters.

"The Tragedy of the Streets of Flowers," was published posthumously, in 1980. Its theme is centered on the love story between young Vítor and the prostitute Genoveva, a most ardent passion destined for a tragic outcome. Eça is well known for his perfectionism, and through long, detailed descriptions, we are given an elaborated picture of Portuguese society at the end of the 19th century, with its false morals, lack of national identity, sluggish social and political institutions, and overall decay.

This edition is to be praised for the inclusion of a short biography of Eça. Neddless to say, the atuhor was a victim of false morality, hypocrisy, and prejudice, all of which reflected in his critical approach to his native country and its society.

Margaret Jull Costa, translator for the work of Eca De Quiroz, brought a freshness to 19th century writing that created the Portugal of the story.

Genoveva, a woman who lived off of men, was cunning in her desire to earn a living for her lady in waiting, her English servant and herself. Knowing she needed income and investments she cukolded Damaso and found a way out of no way. Her love for Vitor was intense and by the end of the story you realized tragic. She, in her zest, to get her wont ruined both her life and Vitors life...for a second time.

This book was part of a graduate course I took. It is a very good tool for promoting and instilling habits that produce self-directed learners. I was not only able to help my students by reading this book, but I also helped myself become more self-directed. I recommend this book to parents and educators.

GM Johnson has produced a useful, very reasonably priced map book for these counties. Street detail is very good in the densely populated areas, but is often lacking for those places off-the-beaten-track. Therefore, if you just need to get around the cities and towns, this map is great. However, it is really not sufficient for backroad treks.

I suppose that, with this book, Costa was getting around to summarizing and recounting what he regarded as significant in his career. Unfortunately, and I mean this with no animus, one wonders just how significant it has been. The encounter with Maugham is unenlightening,banal and centerpieced by a full page photograph of a note from Maugham to Costa stating "For Richard Costa in recollection of a pleasant chat." (Signed of course.)-Gee, I feel I know Maugham so much better now.-The Maugham part is only the first 32 pages though. The rest of the book is a concoction gleaned from the author's life of unrelated literary notions and meetings:H.G. Wells, Ms. Hemingway, Edmund Wilson etc. -The only of these encounters I found truly amusing and interesting was with the hysterical late wife of the writer Malcolm Lowry. She is already smashed by the time Costa meets her in mid-afternoon and, after a lunch of escargots, for which she has Costa pay, takes him back to her hotel room, where she continues to drink and leaves Costa fascinated by the welts on her back (Were they intended? Does she have violent lovers?)-Costa leaves her hotel room drunkenly as her late husband was famous for being (being bit by a poodle on the way out), thinking he has managed a sort of coup in getting her to admit that Malcolm had intended suicide.-It's, of course, really not such a surprise after all for anyone who knows anything about Malcolm....So, in summation, an interesting enough read. Mr. Costa has made some interesting acquaintances along the way....Still, for me, the whole book is worth the picture of Malc and Marge outside their cabin in Canada with drinks in their hands-Malc grinning like the cat that swallowed the canary!