Central America Books

Hardy Boys Edge of destruction in a book about a political banquet when Fenton Hardy is kiddnapped. The kiddnapper needs to receive 20 million dollars within days if Fenton is left unharmed. That's just the start! The boys get involved saving eachother's lives and their fathers. They are injected with with a virus that knocks them out. They risk their lives their lives trying to escape! This is is one of my favorite books.

This book provides a good overview of the Eisenhower presidency, 1953-1961. It shows that Eisenhower was far from the genial but uninformed leader belittled by his contemporary critics. In fact, Eisenhower successfully navigated the nation through a series of dangerous episodes in the depths of the Cold War. At home, he displayed an unfortunate lack of leadership on civil rights, but he largely succeeded in his basic economic policies of controlling government spending and restoring some balance between revenues and expenditures. Unlike most of his successors, he presided over almost eight years of peace and prosperity.

If you are looking for a short, fair overview of the Eisenhower presidency, this is the book for you. It is clearly written and informative. It also contains a good bibliography and a documents section.

I met Leigh Binford in Dec 1994 during the burial of the 143 children and 2 adults that were sent back for the formal burial at El Mozote. Binfords analysis is more in depth than Danners dramatic book as far as cultural background and historical development of El Mozote and the state of Morazan in general. I currently am living in San salvador and right now they (Medicina Legal Forensics) are currently exhuming massacre remains near San Vicente.

Too bad the whole worlds attention is so Pavlov to the Medias bidding to current events while the past -and current- U.S. Involvement in El Salvador is swept under the rug and hid behind low intensity conflict style blaming. "Oh its their fault" Yeah, we trained them, and knew it was going on all the time. Right NOW we are VERY involved in COLOMBIA, and everybody is just sitting and browsing the net with starbucks coffee., Lets get off our duffs and find out what's going on. "Oh, but wait.. I have to see if My plastic Horses have sold on Ebay." Good work LEIGH!

I found this book to be truly well organized, as I was able to find anything I needed about the country. It was very interesting to read and the descriptions of the different parts of El Salvador were very well written.

I strongly recommend this book for people that want to travel to El Salvador or who have children that need to write a report.

I checked this book out from the library before going to El Salvador, and I found it a very helpful overview of the culture. When I returned, I was showing my friends and family pictures from this book as much as I was showing my own pictures. I am purchasing the book to have as a keepsake from my trip, and because of the good information and pictures. I especially liked the parts about the revolution, and Bishop Romero which are harder to remember.

Vivid illustrations, more up-to-date than other children's books on El Salvador because it was written after the war. Fun to read, especially the chapter on folktales. Not too shocking for children. Recommended!!:)

Luis Poma logra escribir varias ideas, pensamientos y anecdotas. Aunque muy cortas y simples, tienen mucho significado y logran tocar temas profundos. No cabe duda que este hombre disfruto la aventura de la vida de la mejor manera.

Argueta does a good job of retelling the tale of El Zipitio. If yo are from El Salvador you probably heard this story or the name. Even if you are not familiar, this story goes back to the Pipiles who inhabited El Salvador. The art of the book is very good. It's worth the money.

Bayard Taylor, with the eye of the photographer for detail and composition and the writing talent of the professional journalist Horace Greely so willingly paid, provides the reader with a fantastic look at California of the mid-1800's. His vivid descriptions of the people, the events, and perhaps most importantly, the pre-development beauty of California's wild mountains, seacoasts, and valleys, made this reviewer (a native Californian) long for a time machine to allow visits to the wondrous collection of experiences described by Taylor. From his many travels across the land, to his viewing of the first California constitutional convention, his words allow the reader to feel the wind in one's hair as the California-bred horses fly at top speed across the valleys and through the washes, or to become a fly on the wall as the convention delegates reach compromises which shaped and prepared the State for its Golden future. The pictures he paints of the natural environment of early California are so dramatic that they must could certainly be used to support any attempts to preserve the tragically few remaining expanses of California wilderness. This is a book for Californians (and those who love the state) who wish to return, if only for a few brief moments, to the sounds and the sights of it's birth: raw, chaotic, beautiful, yet with a rich Spanish/Mexican heritage and social codes that provided a useable framework to maintain law and order. Taylor describes it all, allowing us to understand not only what was happening, but also why. It's a great book.

This is a fascinating critique of how North American scholars have interpreted revolutionary movements in El Salvador and, by implication, neighboring Central American countries. The "dominant paradigm" is the idea that injustice + reactionary governments = revolution. Why have Latin America scholars lagged behind others in studying revolution in terms of culture, ideology and agency? Grenier's focus on the role of the Salvadoran universities and political-military organizations suggests an answer. The dominant paradigm removes the revolutionary vanguard from scrutiny. Not being a specialist on El Salvador, I hope to see Grenier's approach taken seriously and debated by other Central America scholars.