This article aims to summarize the trajectory of a research area in the recent history of the country, focused on the analysis of flooding in Costa Rica and its agroecological, social, risk management and citizen organization impacts. The purpose is to show the journey in the study of this topic and the contributions from History, through the research and outreach projects developed by scholars from the National University of Costa Rica in various parts of the country. To that end, the final reports of the completed projects, along with the published outputs, were reviewed, highlighting the theoretical and methodological foundations on which the projects have been based, such as applied history, environmental history, agricultural systems, natural hazards, risk management, disaster prevention, citizen participation and complex systems. As well as the main findings and outputs generated, highlighting the transition from a disciplinary approach in History to a more interdisciplinary orientation. The results presented introduce the reader to the origins of risk management in Costa Rica, the impact of flooding on landscape transformation, citizen organization and education in disaster prevention.
This work reviews the articles about economic history published in the Revista de Historia (RH) between 1975 and 2024. Economic history is understood as a subdiscipline that studies the production, distribution, circulation and consumption of goods obtained by the three economic activity fields: agriculture, industry and services. In total, 137 articles were selected from a total of 591 published to date (23 %). Reviews and interviews were not included. The chosen texts were classified considering the spatiotemporal scope and the themes they included. Considering this balance, the number of articles about economic history diminished throughout the years. 62 % tackled issues concerning Costa Rica, and the remaining percent were about other countries. The most studied subperiods range from the independence in 1821 to the decade of 1980 (60 %). In summary, this work shows how this subdiscipline has grown in one of the oldest and most important journals of social sciences in Costa Rica, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary.
Drawing from Elizabeth Fonseca Corrales’s lecture, this article offers a journey through the past fifty years of the Revista de Historia. The article also highlights the journal’s role in the history discipline in Costa Rica and Central America. The analysis is organized into two main stages. The first focuses on the period 1975–1985, examining the journal’s challenging beginnings at the National University (UNA), overcoming the crises that threatened its continuity. The second stage examines the period beginning in 1985, marked by the consolidation of the project, driven by a 1986 co-publishing agreement between the National University and the University of Costa Rica. The author shares her 17-year experience as an editor-in-chief, detailing the evolution of editorial processes and the technological and thematic challenges encountered. Finally, she reflects on the termination of the inter-university agreement in 2012 and on the journal’s legacy in shaping a community of historians in the region.
This article presents an overview of the publications on sociopolitical topics in the Revista de Historia between 1975 and 2024. By its nature, the main source for this study is the journal itself, which is available in both physical and digital formats. Methodologically, the first step involved a comprehensive review of all the journal’s issues to identify publications relevant to the topic of interest. Secondly, several exercises were carried out to systematize the information and create categories for analysis. Three main conclusions can be drawn: a) sociopolitical history has been written primarily by men, b) the two most dynamic lines of publication during the period were related to categories such as Power, Democracy and Institutions, and Conflicts and Consensus, and c) there is a thematic evolution from approaches focused on specific events, institutions, and individual figures toward others concerned with complex processes and the inclusion of new historical actors. This reflects not only disciplinary progress but also a clearer concern for the social use of history.
This article follows the paths of coffee cultivation in the Central Valley. The vigorous support from public authorities after Independence and the receptiveness of the seed by producers combined to create a new landscape in the ecumene of the four provinces. It is almost certain that the coffee seed settled in the same agricultural spaces as the colonial crops (tobacco, sugarcane, wheat, and corn) with planting beginning in San José and Cartago, and more slowly in Heredia and Alajuela, contributing to a rapid transformation of the economy, institutions, and customs, the effects of which would be fully felt in the 19th century. In this regard, one could recall the important role played by water in the processing of the fruit, a fundamental resource for the creation of the myth, «The Golden Grain».
