Product Description
This George Lovell's classic work, based primarily on unpublished archival sources, examines the impact of Spanish rule on the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, an isolated region of Guatemala running along the country's north-western border with Mexico. Although Spanish imperialism left its mark, Lovell reveals that the vibrant Maya culture found in the Cuchumatan highlands was not obliterated and, although under considerable stress, endures to this day. This extensively revised third edition includes a new preface, a chapter on native resistance to Spanish domination, an updated bibliography, and an epilogue which documents that postcolonial times had as much effect on people's lives as three centuries of Spanish rule. In discussions that focus on land, settlement, economy, access to resources, and population change over time, Lovell exposes the colonial roots of problems at the heart of Guatemala's ongoing political crises. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Essential reading
This book is an absolute must for any academic working in highland Guatemala. Probably not very good for the casual tourist though. ... Read more

Product Description
Compared to what is known about Mexico and Peru, our knowledge of the encounter between Spaniards and Indians in much of Central America remains blurred and speculative. While works exist that deal with the isthmus of Central America as a whole and the nation states that emerged within it, few detailed regional studies are available. Based primarily on unpublished archival sources, this work examines the impact of Spanish rule in the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes, an isolated region of north-western Guatemala. The Maya peoples who live there withstood the onslaught of European intrusion to a degree little known or appreciated before the original publication of "Conquest and survival in colonial Guatemala". This revised edition includes a new preface, an updated bibliography, and a substantive epilogue that stresses the theme of native resistance to Spanish domination. Maya resistance was demonstrated physically in the form of armed struggle and rebellion, and expressed culturally through fugitivism, idolatry, tax evasion, monolinguism, and civil disobedience.In chapters that focus on land, settlement, economy, and population, Lovell exposes the colonial roots of problems at the heart of Guatemala's current political crisis. "Conquest and survival in colonial Guatemala" modifies certain generalizations about the impact of Spanish rule in Central America and sharpens our understanding of how varied native response to this outside presence was. Spanish imperialism penetrated and left its mark on even the remote Cuchumatan highlands, but the vibrant Maya culture found there was not obliterated; indeed, although under considerable duress, it endures to this day. ... Read more

Product Description
Describes the geography, history, economy, government, culture, and people of the northernmost Central American country. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Guatemala in Pictures
I'm very careful about the books I buy for my 6th grade classroom, since the money comes from a fund donated by parents and grandparents of my current and former students. I chose this book because it was recommended by the Barahona Center for Studies of Books in Spanish. Although the book is in English, I think it was a very good investment. The publisher could improve the pictures but the text of this updated edition is clear, well-written, and very carefully documented.

Vey useful classroom tool
I really like this series and the Guatemala title is an excellent addition. I am a junior-high teacher and am always scrambling for reliable books on Latin American countries and their histories. There just aren't enough out there!

Few pictures, way over-priced
Ordered this "picture" book for a friend from Guatelmala.It was nearly $30 and I was very unhappy upon receipt.The book does have a lot of small pictures, but few that actually capture the beauty of Guatemala.The book has more writing than pictures, despite the title "Guatemala in Pictures".The book is the size of some children's books and at this cost, I would save the money.It is being returned to Amazon the same day received. ... Read more

Product Description
"Learn about Guatemala’s brutal history of dictatorship and guerilla warfare. Discover the proud Mayan heritage of this beautiful land. Dare to peer into some of the highest and most active volcanoes in Latin America. Explore a land of impenetrable jungles, colorful coral reefs, and spectacular flora and fauna."= ... Read more

Product Description
Allowing children to experience Guatemala through the daily activities of the Calabay family, this book is part of a series which focuses on different countries through the topic of family life. It includes short quotes which bring the personalities of the family members to life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Wonderful Pictures and information!
This is a great book for young children. Excellent first book for teaching kids about another county.I enjoyed the book very much and I am an adult! It offers lots of nice color photographs and discusses everyday life of thetypical Guatemala family.

Wonderful Pictures and information!
This is a great book for young children. Excellent first book for teaching kids about another county.I enjoyed the book very much and I am an adult! It offers lots of nice color photographs and discusses everyday life of thetypical Guatemala family. ... Read more

Product Description

Bitter Fruit is a comprehensive and insightful account of the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. First published in 1982, this book has become a classic, a textbook case of the relationship between the United States and the Third World. The authors make extensive use of U.S. government documents and interviews with former CIA and other officials. It is a warning of what happens when the United States abuses its power.

Customer Reviews (8)

Meticulously researched AND well-written
Schlesinger and Kinzer did indeed write a classic.The book is well-written and very readable.While it is certainly an academic work and may be considered a textbook, it is not as dry as such the connotation suggests.On the contrary, the story at times feels like a best-selling espionage novel or a Hollywood conspiracy-theory movie, but much better in my opinion.

More importantly, Bitter Fruit is supported by excellent sources - many Freedom of Information Act documents and also many memoirs and interviews of people involved in the events.This is comforting and assures that while the book is almost written in the style of a fictional thriller, the authors did not take any liberties of rewriting or embellishing history to make the book more fun to read.

Schlesinger and Kinzer also do an excellent job of providing the background of the parties involved and the historical context in which the revolution and coup took place.They also wrap up the book well in their 'Aftermath' final chapter and provide much needed closure to the story, in which they discuss the fates of the major players since the coup.


Highest recommendations.

A sad chapter of American history ...
A really bad chapter in American and Guatemalan history.This book tells the story of how one American company lobbied the United States government into overthrowing a sovereign government.The nationalist movement in Guatemala was turned into a communist pariah.

Recommended Read
To be honest, I would never have made it through this book if it had not been required for my class but I am glad that I did. The history of the coup and how it has played out and affected Guatemala to this day is a horrific example of American history, but one that should be common knowledge to the American public in order to keep a closer eye on our international affairs.

The authors did a great job of narrating the history in way that reads more like a story than a history book, though at times it can be a bit hard to read through (though that could be my own weakness in reading) with many different people involved. However, the intro giving a brief overview of the history of the coup helps give the reader an overview and the afterword is much appreciated.

The five stars I'm giving this book is in part due to the authors' ability to make the book an interesting read on history, but mostly because this is a book and a history that people should know.

Interesting but misleading propaganda
This is a very interesting book, but its premise is false and misleading.
The book is advertised as revealing a wicked conspiracy among the CIA and the United Fruit Company, against the people of Guatemala, who were
purportedly robbed of their country and murdered by those terrible American Capitalists.Not quite.There's another side to it.

In order to uncover this, however, the reader must skip past the
introduction, the forward, the preface, and the first few chapters,
and begin with the FIFTH chapter.Chapter 5.Use the index, folks:
United Fruit Company, background of, pages 65-69.

In Chapter 5 we read about how this supposedly nefarious American
corporation, United Fruit Company, came about.

In 1870, Captain Loranzo Dow Baker discovers bananas in Jamaica,
takes them to America where they are unknown, and begins a very
successful business.In 1885 the Boston Fruit Company is formed.
The company grows, and soon the fields of Jamaica, Cuba and
Santo Domingo are insufficient, so Central American countries are
considered.Enter Mr. Minor Keith, Brooklyn-born entrepreneur who
has built a railroad in Costa Rica, the first one, in 1870.

Boston Fruit merges with Keith and, on March 30, 1899, United Fruit
is born.The new firm has 112 miles of railroad in Central America,
and 212,394 acres of land, 61,263 of which is producing bananas.

Pay attention to this:"At that time, LAND in the undeveloped tropical
lowlands could be had for almost nothing, since the local rulers
HAD NO OTHER USE FOR IT [emphasis mine], AND WERE HAPPY
TO BE PAID ANYTHING FOR IT [emphasis mine]."(page 67)

The land was not "stolen," it was purchased, and sold voluntarily.
Later, some greedy communists decided to STEAL this land
away from the Americans, and THAT'S why it got rough.And bloody.
GREEDY COMMUNISTS, NOT GREEDY AMERICAN CAPITALISTS.
THIEVING, greedy communists, who STOLE land that had been
purchased LEGITIMATELY.Not merely legally, but LEGITIMATELY.

Why don't we have a look at another source:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/guatemalacoup.htm

Here's an excerpt:"These reforms were continued by his successor,
Colonel Jacobo Arbenz, ...also legalized the communist Guatemalan Labor Party."

[NOTE:] "The Labor Party BEGAN TO CONTROL labor unions,
peasant organizations, and the governing political party."[emphasis mine]

"American firms in Guatemala such as the United Fruit Company
became increasingly discontent with the Guatemalan government,
especially after the Arbenz government passed a law expropriating large estates, a law which greatly affected the United Fruit Company's plantations."

"The United States itself also began to fear the increasingly communist nature of the Arbenz government and coupled with pressure from the
United Fruit Company and other firms, the CIA supported a coup that invaded Guatemala from Honduras and quickly took control of the government, installing military dictator Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas."

"The coup and the resulting regime began an almost 50-year period of
military dictators, fraudulent elections, and civil wars that claimed 200,000 lives, many of them civilians."[ end of excerpt ]

Remember Kruschev's threat: "We will BURY you!" Communism was a REAL THREAT to the United States back then...

On the back of the book: "David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University"

Hmmm..."Haaah-vid"Land of Timothy Leary and his fallen legacy...

Author Steven Schlesinger is "Director of the World Policy Institute"
(New York City...that figures...)Kinzer -- Boston Globe, New York Times, ditto...Coatsworth and Nuccio, Haaa-vid...Amherst...Typical C-SPAN panel of elitist liberal academics, all speaking matter-of-factly, as though they were speaking the truth, rather than half-truths and, at times, outright misinformation.

Does the public buy it?Some do, some don't.Listen to the callers...
no, don't bother !They screen them, and it's all sooooo predictable...

Books like this one, "Bitter Fruit," are interesting, but are funded by
spoiled, wealthy liberals with burnt-out brain cells, and marketed by
those who probably believe all that stuff...don't know any better...

The problem I have with this brand of propaganda is that it says that America is an EVIL country, founded by EVIL men, who "stole" the land from the poor, helpless indigenous folks...The people who come up with all these interpretations generally have some form of collectivist agenda, be it Marxist, or socialist...(Howard Zinn, for example).

What would they have done instead?
Well, consider Stalin, and Chairman Mao...They would've done
the same AND WORSE.Therefore, these revisionist "historians"
are HYPOCRITES !What are their "solutions?"Reparations?
Punish the great-grandchildren?Massive immigration as a punitive
measure, punishing the white race, working-class included, for some
imaginary crimes others supposedly committed, balkanizing the
country...Teaching schoolchildren to be ashamed of their country...

Do yourself a favor . . . read this book!
Whether you're a connoiseur with a PhD in international relations, a high-school dropout looking to enhance their missing education, or someone who just wants to read an engrossing book with a little intellectual flare to it, one can be both entertained and appalled by the story contained in "Bitter Fruit".
Kinzer and Schlesinger's writing is impeccable, and somehow manages to stay apolitical.The authors do an excellent job of not flaunting the miscues of the American overthrow of Guatemala's democratically elected government, but merely let the facts from all angles tell their own story.In addition, the writing is quite fast-paced in style but pays attentive detail to fact and exhautively denotes the sources behind the writing.I purchased this for reading as part of a class assignment - and then cited it in two places in my senior essay!
So instead of buying a FICTIONAL thriller or adventure or spy novel for your downtime reading, why not pick up a book where the plot . . . actually happened?!In addition, despite being originally published a quarter century ago, the book is amazingly relevant to issues in today's foreign policy (*cough* Iraq *cough*).Also, I HIGHLY recommend for history buffs like myself - but this book can be enjoyed by anyone.Well, "enjoyed" isn't really the word - after reading this book, I felt a sense of anger towards our government for their selfish actions 50 years ago, and a sense of pity toward the people of Guatemala, who had no idea what hit them.But the feelings weren't on the level as to wish that I had never read the book - on the contrary, it made me feel more enlightened both about the Cold War era as well as today's international climate. ... Read more

Product Description
A look at the life of a twelve-year-old Mayan Indian girl and her family living in the lakeside village of Santiago Atitlâan. Includes a section with information on Guatemala. ... Read more

Product Description
Chapters: Jalapa, Jalapa, Sacatepéquez Department, Concepción Chiquirichapa, Santiago Atitlán, San Lucas Tolimán, San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán, San Antonio Palopó, Todos Santos Cuchumatán, San Marcos La Laguna, San Juan La Laguna, Laguna Lachuá, Ixcán, Sierra Del Lacandón, Huehuetenango, Totonicapán Department, Uspantán, Salcajá, Mazatenango, Suchitepéquez, Sololá, San Juan Ixcoy, Playa Grande, Livingston, Guatemala, Sipacapa, El Adelanto, Escuintla, Quetzaltenango Department, Chiquimula Department, Escuintla Department, San Pedro Soloma, Chisec, San Pedro Carchá, Santa Rosa Department, Panzós, Jacaltenango, San Andrés, El Petén, Palín, Escuintla, Sipacate-Naranjo National Park, Morales, Guatemala, Santa Catalina La Tinta, Lanquín, Amatitlán, Chiantla, Chiquimulilla, Casillas, Guastatoya, Puerto San José, Santa Maria Nebaj, Conguaco, Santa Cruz Verapaz, Punta de Manabique, Cuilapa, Salamá, Chicamán, San Marcos, Guatemala, Lake Amatitlán, Retalhuleu, Puerto Quetzal, Laguna El Pino, San Antonio Ilotenango, Asunción Mita, Sacapulas, Cunén, Raxruha, Pachalum, San Juan Cotzal, San Bartolomé Jocotenango, Sibilia, Chajul, Monjas, El Progreso, Jutiapa, Yupiltepeque, Zacualpa, Chinique, Chiché, Guatemala, Jalpatagua, Sierra de Chuacús, San Pedro Jocopilas, Patzún, Tajumulco, Patzité, Concepción Tutuapa, Comapa, Atescatempa, Moyuta, Zapotitlán, Tejutla, San Marcos, Quezada, Santa Apolonia, Chimaltenango, Sierra Del Merendón, San Francisco El Alto, San Miguel Ixtahuacán, Chocón Machacas, Maya Mountains, Sierra de Chinajá, Visis Cabá, Semuc Champey, El Rosario National Park, San Martín Sacatepéquez, Cuevas Del Silvino, Trifinio Biosphere Reserve, Gulf of Honduras, Belize River, Pasión River, San Juan Comalapa, Grutas de Lanquín, Ixil Triangle, Sierra Del Mico, Cerro El Baúl, Tecpán Guatemala, Las Victorias, Zunil, Volcán Tajumulco, Olintepeque, Naciones Unidas National Park, Los Aposentos, Santa María Cahabón, Lake Güija, Santo Tomás de...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=2394486 ... Read more

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Chapters: Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemalan Highlands, Visis Cabá, National Geographic Institute of Guatemala, Chixoy River, Ixil Triangle, List of Islands of Guatemala. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 29. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: The Maya Biosphere Reserve (Reserva de la Biosfera Maya) is a nature reserve in Guatemala managed by Guatemala's National Council of Protected Areas (CONAP). The Maya Biosphere Reserve covers a total area of 21,602 km², which is considerably larger than Yellowstone National Park. The park is home to a large number of species of fauna including the Jaguar, the Puma, the Ocelot, the Margay, spider monkeys, howler monkeys, tapirs, crocodiles, the Red Brocket and the White-tail deers, the Harpy Eagle, several hawk species, the Scarlet Macaw, fresh water turtles, etc. It is also rich in flora including mahogany, Ceiba, cedar, etc. The area ranges from wetlands, to low mountain ranges, and has several bodies of water, including lakes, rivers, streams and cenotes. The Reserve was created in 1990 to protect the largest area of tropical forest remaining in Central America. The biosphere reserve model, implemented by UNESCO, seeks to promote a balance between human activities and the biosphere by including sustainable economic development in conservation planning. The Maya Biosphere Reserve is divided into several zones, each with a different protected status. The core zones are formed by several national parks and biotopes (wildlife preserves), in which no human settlement, logging, or extraction of resources are allowed. These include Laguna del Tigre National Park, Sierra del Lacandón National Park, Mirador-Río Azul National Park, Tikal National Park, El Zotz Biotope, Naachtún-Dos Lagunas Biotope, Cerro Cahuí Biotope, Laguna del Tigre Biotope, and El ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=5565801 ... Read more

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This digital document is a journal article from Geoforum, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
In Memory of Fire, a poetic narration of the history of the Americas from pre-Columbian times to the late 20th century, Eduardo Galeano furnishes readers with over 1200 of his trademark vignettes, some 35 of which pertain to Guatemala. Galeano evokes disparate aspects of the geography of Guatemala, past and present, in grounded miniatures of time, place, and episode. His sketches of the experiences of Maya peoples allow us to see them as survivors of three cycles of conquest: (1) conquest by imperial Spain; (2) conquest by local and international capitalism; and (3) conquest by state terror. Composed in the literary mode of creative non-fiction, Memory of Fire serves as an inspirational classroom text, exposing students not only to factual detail but also a powerful artistic imagination. ... Read more

Product Description
Bitter Fruit recounts in telling detail the CIA operation to overthrow the democratically elected government of Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala in 1954. The 1982 book has become a classic, a textbook case study of Cold War meddling that succeeded only to condemn Guatemala to decades of military dictatorship. The authors make extensive use of U.S. government publications and documents, as well as interviews with former CIA and other officials. The Harvard edition includes a powerful new introduction by historian John Coatsworth, Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies; an insightful prologue by Richard Nuccio, former State Department official who revealed recent evidence of CIA misconduct in Guatemala to Congress; and a compelling afterword by coauthor Stephen Kinzer, now Istanbul bureau chief for the New York Times, summarizing developments that led from the 1954 coup to the peace accords that ended Guatemala's civil strife forty years later. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (13)

Interesting...
The massive stupidity and culpability of US in toppling the Arbenz Government is a case in point. The same principles are still applied wantonly without thinking at all of long term consequences. Crushing the Arbenz Government to protect vested interests of atiny coterie of businessmen with links to politicians, that too, using the resources of the state is treachery against any nation. It does seem that greed knows no bounds and that lust for power can make men to anything. I can imagine US fighting for a legitimate influence of Communism but involving state machinery to prolong the greed of influential people is inacceptable.Interestingly United Fruits is still well-entrenched in Guatemala but now called Chiquita. Many American charactersin this book have had parallels in Nazis, you would many Hitlers', Goebbels' and Himmlers in this book. I think Eisenhower was a Hitler-like character. Anyway, what is the difference, barring a slight difference, one killed Jews and another hated them.
'

What did kicking out Arbenz ( no angel himself)achieve? Losing Cuba to the dictatorship of Fidel and his murderous brother Raul.What did US intervention to Afghanistan ( to oust the Soviets) achieve? 9/11. Who knows what's in store for us after the Iraq War is over? I guess the new United Fruits are the Oil Companies.

Honesty is a mere word and a hopeless cause revered by the middle-class as an excuse for their lack of power to do anything.

A cautionary tale of monsters
Nietzsche's advice to aspiring monster-slayers to take care to avoid becoming a monster ("Wer mit Ungeheuen kämpf, mag zusehn, daß er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuerwird") should have warned Americans involved in this dark adventure. Sadly, they ignored it.

`Operation Success' deposed Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán in a 1954 CIA-inspired coup and replaced him with Colonel Carlos Castillo Armas, a compliant proxy. It benifited the few at the expense of the many, and offered United Fruit Company only a brief respite as a feudal monopoly. Like the removal of Mossadegh to reinstitute Anglo-Iranian Oil's 90% revenue share in Iran in 1953, decades of bloodletting, poverty, unrest, and anti-Americanism followed.

The authors' lucid history of the coup, principles, and events has become justifiably famous since publication in 1982. The interaction between the Boston-based United Fruit Company (with it's close ties to the Dulles brothers) and the CIA anticipates current government-corporate partnerships like Treasury and Goldman-Sachs. Fear is a remarkably effective tool in preserving corporate privilege.

One can argue President Eisenhower's greatest mistakes were Iran and Guatemala, but that's little solice to Iranians or Guatemalans. Two years later (1956) he courageously acted against France, Britain, and Israel in their Suez occupation. On 5 Jan 1961 his staff warned CIA adventures might detract from the agency's intelligence function. The Bay of Pigs was left for John F. Kennedy to regret. Decades later the absence of fabled WMDs after a 2003 Iraqi `regime change' (blamed on "intelligence failure") caused less embarrassment.

Highly recommended.

Another Stephen Kinzer-hot as a pistol history book...
The other book I read by Stephen Kinzer was "Takeover", a book about one hundred years or so of American foreign adventures of conquest."Takover" gives a briefer account of the Guatemalan coup than does "Bitter Fruit".I enjoy his details.I am happy I had the chance to read this.

Student - LOVED IT!
If you are new to political type books, this is a great read! It reads very much like a novel.I had to read the book for a class and couldn't put it down because I just couldn't wait to see what happened next.It is a disturbing tale of the manipulative power of the U.S. government and press among other things.

It's still happening!
After the successful coup by the CIA, general Castillo Armas was "made" president.Just two years later he was murdered, and Gen. Ydigoras Fuentes took power (1958).In response to the increasingly autocratic rule of Gen. Fuentes, a group of junior military officers revolted in 1960. When they failed, several went into hiding and established close ties with Cuba. This group (the guerrillas) became the nucleus of the forces that were in armed insurrection against the government for the next 36 years.

Nearly 300,000 people died.

The civil war ended in 1996.And we are still living with the repercussions of a 36 year war:violence, poverty, industrial underdevelopment, resentment, corruption etc.

So, if you think this book speaks of events long past and forgotten... think again.The same MO was used in Irak.There were no WMDs (Bush lied), there was no reason to start a war!Or was it?Did american big business benefit?

37,000 civilians from Iraq have died.

3,000 american soldiers have died.

And when you see the millions of latin immigrants protesting in all your major cities, don't be so quick to blame our countries.The CIA did similar things in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Panama, Chile, Dominican Republic, Cuba, Argentina, Honduras etc.

Do yourself a favor and read this book. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Geographical Review, published by American Geographical Society on July 1, 1996. The length of the article is 4577 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Between 5 and 6 million Maya Indians today constitute roughly half of Guatemala's total population. From the eve of conquest to the present, the collapse, recovery, and growth of the Maya population reveals a trajectory of survival few Native American groups have been able to sustain. A review of archival and published sources indicates an enduring Maya presence from the sixteenth century to the twentieth, a demographic fact that official state institutions like the national census have tended to downplay or have documented inadequately. Accurate, reliable assessment of indigenous numbers thwarts present-day investigations as much as those rooted in the past, for Maya Indians fled far beyond Guatemala's borders during civil strife in the early 1980s and now form sizable communities in Mexico, the United States, and even Canada. Keywords: Guatemala, Maya Indians, population history, Carl Sauer.

Citation Details
Title: "A dark obverse": Maya survival in Guatemala, 1520-1994.
Author: W. George Lovell
Publication: The Geographical Review (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 1996
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: v86Issue: n3Page: p398(10)

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Product Description
This digital document is an article from The Geographical Review, published by American Geographical Society on January 1, 1998. The length of the article is 6665 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Keywords: agriculture, Almolonga, Guatemala, health, pesticides.

Citation Details
Title: Commercial agriculture and agrochemicals in Almolonga, Guatemala.
Author: Sonia I. Arbona
Publication: The Geographical Review (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 1998
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: 88Issue: 1Page: 47(1)

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Product Description
This digital document is an article from Focus on Geography, published by American Geographical Society on December 22, 2008. The length of the article is 3994 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Ecotourism and sustainability in a Q'eqchi' Maya community, Guatemala.
Author: Bobby Bascomb
Publication: Focus on Geography (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 22, 2008
Publisher: American Geographical Society
Volume: 51Issue: 3Page: 11(6)

Distributed by Gale, a part of Cengage Learning ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Journal of Historical Geography, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Today's domesticated plants not only embody past human-nature interactions, but also reflect social history. Human seed exchange, replacement and loss are important forces in shaping crop diversity. This essay explores regional history in relation to the shaping of maize diversity in the western highlands of Guatemala. This is an area of exceptional maize heterogeneity and a peripheral part of the region where maize was domesticated. Maize diversity seems to have developed through geographic isolation in networks of seed exchange that were generally very local in scope. However, recent studies on Mexican maize suggest otherwise. However, few studies have examined crop diversity or seed exchange from a historical perspective. A closer examination of regional history suggests which processes might be important for shaping the present geographical distribution of maize diversity. Seeds were occasionally transported over longer distances. As a consequence, maize diversity is geographically not characterised by sharp differences between farming communities; the main differences are to be found in regional occurrences. This challenges antimodern ideas of closed, local native ecologies. Consequently, the conservation of maize genetic resources is a challenge, but not entirely contradictory with its transforming socio-economic context. ... Read more