"Costa Rica: A Global Studies Handbook" offers readers an authoritative tour of a remarkable country, tracing its historical development from pre-Colombian inhabitants and Spanish colonization through rising prosperity in the mid-19th century to current struggles to define itself economically and politically.

"Costa Rica" combines narrative chapters on the nation's history and the current state of its political, social, and cultural institutions with alphabetically organized entries covering important people, places, and events in its development. Throughout, the authors, drawing on...