Guides: Alumni Travel Reading: Panama Canal and Costa Rica

Panama Culture and History

Wolf Tracks: Popular Art and Re-Africanization in Twentieth-Century Panama by Peter Szok
Call Number: Van Pelt Library F1563.8 .S96 2012
ISBN: 9781617032431
Publication Date: 2012
Panama's "red devil" buses are iconic manifestations of the country's vibrant popular art movement. Bus owners hire artists to create customer attracting depictions of singers and actors, realistic panoramas, and brash slogans. With their eye catching design and blasting stereo systems the buses are a dominate presence in Panamanian street life, especially in Panama City and Colón. Szok analyzes the origins of "red devil" buses, and connects them to Afro-American festival traditions.
Culture and Customs of Panama by La Verne M. Seales Soley
Call Number: Museum Library F1563.8 .S44 2009
ISBN: 9780313336676
Publication Date: 2008
All aspects of contemporary life in Panama are explored in a straight forward, informative fashion. Expect to find a description of the daily practices of religion, habits of dress, cuisine, and other aspects of family life in urban and rural settings. This book will also introduce you to the cultural and intellectual spheres of Modern literature, media, gender issues, education, visual and performing arts. Authors do not ignore politics and provide insight into Panama's unique relationship with the United States.
Path of Empire: Panama and the California Gold Rush by Aims McGuinness
Call Number: Van Pelt Library E 183.8.P2 M36 2008
ISBN: 9780801445217
Publication Date: 2007
In this archivally based history, Aims McGuinness examines the intertwined histories of the California Gold Rush, the course of U.S. empire, and anti-imperialist politics in Latin America.
Colón Man a Come: Mythographies of Panamá Canal Migration by Rhonda Frederick
Call Number: Van Pelt Library PN849.C3 F75 2005
ISBN: 0739108891
Publication Date: 2005
"Named for Panama's Caribbean port city, the Cólon Man has been the subject of historical, sociological, and geographical scholarship. He, however, has escaped the domain of literary investigation until now." [Publisher's description]

Rainforest Wildlife

Oophaga pumilio, 'Strawberry "blue jeans" Poison Dart Frog.' Photographed by Jay Iwasaki. Obtained with Creative Commons via Flickr.

Panama: Environmental Interests

Beyond the Big Ditch by Ashley Carse
Call Number: TC774 .C4365 2014
ISBN: 9780262028110
Publication Date: 2014
Exploring the politics of environmental management around a waterway that links faraway ports and markets to nearby farms, forests, cities, and rural communities, the author highlights the cultural and ecological implications of transportation across Panama.

Panama and Costa Rica

Industrial bridge with traintrack and foottraffic

Sixaola bridge, gateway to Panama via Costa Rica on the Carribean coast. Photo by Arturo Sotillo and used with a Creative Commons license.

Bibliographer and Penn Alumni Travel

Selected and Annotated By:

Rebecca Stuhr

Coordinator for Humanities Collections

Librarian for History and Classical Studies

stuhrreb @ pobox.upenn.edu

Website Edited By:

Kelsey LeClair

Specialist in Classical Studies

Administrative Assistant, Penn Libraries

kleclair @ pobox.upenn.edu

For more information about this and other excursions, visit Penn Alumni Travel.

Four Centuries

Four Centuries of the Panama Canal by Willis Fletcher Johnson,1857-1931.

Beginning with Colombus's voyage and ending with Yankee hegemony. Johnson writes, "The Story is nearly four hundred centuries long and implicates, literally, mankind from China to Peru." You can read this online through Hathitrust.org, an openly accessible database with full text (read online) for those books published primarily before 1923. F

For a more pictorial work, try Panama Canal Pictures : Showing the Latest Photographs of the Progress Construction on the Isthmian Canal : together with a brief introduction, some interesting figures, and a map of the Canal Zone.

Click on pages to read book below or to download.

Pictorial Panama

Panama and Costa Rica: Toucans and Orchids

35 segments from the Lindblad Expeditions and National Geographic series on Panama and Costa Rica.

Costa Rica Culture, History, and Nature

The History of Costa Rica by Monica A. Rankin
Call Number: F1546 .R36 2012
ISBN: 9780313379444
Publication Date: 2012
Introducing us to Costa Rica with the ubiquitous saying "Pure Vida" or "Pure Life", this book goes on to discuss local politics, food industry, environmental concerns, and other important events. It offers a compact wealth of knowledge to travelers interested in Costa Rican history.
Africans into Creoles by Russell Lohse
Call Number: HT1056.C67 L65 2014
ISBN: 9780826354976
Publication Date: 2014
Tracing the experiences of Africans on two Danish slave ships that arrived in Costa Rica in 1710, the Christianus Quintus and Fredericus Quartus, this book examines slavery in Costa Rica from 1600 to 1750. Lohse looks at the ethnic origins of the Africans and narrates their capture and transport to the coast, their embarkation and passage, and finally their acculturation to slavery and their lives as slaves in Costa Rica. (excerpt from description by publisher: University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque)
Photo Guide to Birds of Costa Rica by Richard Garrigues
Call Number: Van Pelt Library QL687.C8 G38 2015
ISBN: 1501700251
Publication Date: 2015
Featuring over 500 up-close color images of both common and rare birds found in Costa Rica, this guide is a joy to look through! Detailed descriptions and range maps will be helpful to novice and experienced birders alike.
The Wildlife of Costa Rica: A Field Guide by Fiona Reid; Twan Leenders; Robert Dean; Jim Zook
Call Number: Van Pelt Library QL228.C8 W55 2010
ISBN: 9780801449055
Publication Date: 2010
This guide features all the mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and arthropods you are likely to see when visiting the rainforest.
Nature and Spirit: Ancient Costa Rican Treasures in the Mayer Collection at the Denver Art Museum by Margaret Young-Sánchez
Call Number: Museum Library F1545.3.A7 N3 2010
ISBN: 9780914738688
Publication Date: 2011
The Denver Art Museum has a renowned collection of new world art. This catalog presents and describes its comprehensive collection of ancient Costa Rican Art.

Musica Tipica

Costa Rica: Local Voices

Monkeys Are Made of Chocolate by Jack Ewing; Daniel Quinn (Foreword by)
ISBN: 0965809811
Publication Date: 2005
This book offers an engaging collection of short stories, local lore, and essays compiled by the author over the course of 30 years living on the island of Costa Rica.
Costa Rica by Barbara Ras (Editor); Oscar Arias (Foreword by)
Call Number: PQ7488 .C67 1994
ISBN: 1883513006
Publication Date: 1994
Journey into the Costa Rican imagination through twenty-six remarkable stories, selected and organized regionally for the curious traveler. Here, for the first time in English, the best of Costa Rica's writers conjure the country's allure and vitality, its coffee fields and palm groves, cicadas and songbirds, shrouded mountains and blazing savannas, while telling stories unique to Costa Rican life. (description from publisher, Whereabouts Press: San Francisco)