Arturo J.Cruz, Jr argues that political learning, trust-building, and institutional innovation by political elites broke Nicaragua's post-colonial cycle of anarchy and petty despotism, leaving in its place an increasingly inclusive oligarchic democracy that made possible state-led economic development for the next thirty years. Subsequent economic development gave rise to new social groups and localist power centres that remained politically disparate, and in turn forged an outsiders' coalition to bring down the Republic.

An illustrated, in-depth examintion of the avant-garde and politically radical Latino art of San Francisco's Mission District In The Heart of the Mission, Cary Cordova combines urban, political, and art history to examine how the Mission District, a longtime bohemian enclave in San Francisco, has served as an important place for an influential and largely ignored Latino arts movement from the 1960s to the present. Well before the anointment of the "Mission School" by art-world arbiters at the dawn of the twenty-first century, Latino artists, writers, poets, playwrights, performers, and filmmakers made the Mission their home and their muse. The Mission, home to Chileans, Cubans, Guatemalans, Mexican Americans, Nicaraguans, Puerto Ricans, and Salvadorans never represented a single Latino identity. In tracing the experiences of a diverse group of Latino artists from the 1940s to the turn of the century, Cordova connects wide-ranging aesthetics to a variety of social movements and activist interventions. The book begins with the history of the Latin Quarter in the 1940s and the subsequent cultivation of the Beat counterculture in the 1950s, demonstrating how these decades laid the groundwork for the artistic and political renaissance that followed. Using oral histories, visual culture, and archival research, she analyzes the Latin jazz scene of the 1940s, Latino involvement in the avant-garde of the 1950s, the Chicano movement and Third World movements of the 1960s, the community mural movement of the 1970s, the transnational liberation movements in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and the AIDS activism of the 1980s. Through these different historical frames, Cordova links the creation of Latino art with a flowering of Latino politics.

The discovery of a stash of letters stamped with swastikas opens clues to an untold family history spanning multiple generations in The Book of Joseph – the gripping true story of resilience and truth-tracking determination spanning Baltimore and beyond. Richard Hollander’s book Every Day Lasts a Year: A Jewish Family’s Correspondence from Poland is brought to the stage in this mesmerizing new adaptation that restores a family’s uncharted legacy – celebrated by revelation and remembrance.

At the nexus of politics, sociology, development studies, nationalism studies and Latin American studies, this work takes Nicaragua as a case study to engage and advance upon on Benedict Anderson's ideas on the origins and spread of nationalism.

This June 2010 version is the most up-to-date travel guide to Nicaragua available anywhere. With this guide you can: - Surf hidden breaks uncovered by local surfers - Summit active volcanoes, zipline over lush rainforest, sit and sip at one of the country's many organic coffee farms, or hang your hammock in a remote Caribbean village - Float through the pristine rain forest that lines the Rio San Juan, tracing the Costa Rican border from Lake Nicaragua to the Caribbean Sea. - Navigate the border crossings with Costa Rica and get around Nicaragua by bus, boat and puddle jumper airplane - Understand the Nicaraguan people and how you can help them live a better life by traveling responsibly - Stay a while volunteering or studying Spanish in Granada, Ometepe, San Juan del Sur or Leon Why settle for an outdated guidebook? The V!VA community of on-the-ground travel writers, local experts and travelers like you are continuously updating and improving this guide at vivatravelguides.com. Join them, and together we'll make the best guidebook to Nicaragua even better.