The benefit for an understanding of musical politics, for standards of performance, for audience civility and for musicology in general, has been incalculable, and it is hard to see how existing standards in any of these fields can be maintained, much less improved without continuous and patient prodding and the occasional outpouring of bile from such a source. Let music lovers, makers,administrators and editors, all please take note! " Concert Life in Puerto Rico" is therefore valuable for use and imporvement but also for pleasure. Who can resist a book that contains cracks like, "the orchestra sounded like a faulty zipper," or that compares the first act of Tosca to La Boheme played backwards?!

This coverage of the animals of Puerto Rico is hard to easily categorize: Coqui Y Sus Amigos appears a bilingual children's book but also holds many hard-to-find images and natural history facts for adults, thus is reviewed here, recommended for adult audiences as well. Color photos of insects and lizards are accompanied by natural history descriptions in both English and Spanish. Bright and unusual.

Today I picked up the 1964 Topps Clemente baseball card that finishes off that particular set. Of course, the card says "Bob Clemente" because the Pittsburgh Pirates took a long time to come to terms with the fact their best player was from Puerto Rico. For years Clemente's cards said "Bob" or "Bobby" as the Pirates tried to anglosize their right fielder, the first superstar player from Latin America. In this Dorling Kindersley Level 3 Reading Alone biography, James Buckley, Jr. tells the story of how Clemente grew up on Pureto Rico, where kids use milk cartons as gloves, broomsticks as bats, and rolled up socks as balls, and ended up in the Hall of Fame. They will also understand why the Major Leagues named its award for community service after Clemente, who lost his life in 1972 on a relief flight to Nicaragua after a devastating earthquake, a few months after he got his 3000th and final hit.

This juvenile biography covers the highlights of Clemente's career, such as his four National League batting titles and his getting at least one hit in all 14 World Series games that he played. The book also focuses on Clemente as a Latino baseball player and his legacy in that regard. But the most important thing is that readers will understand why Clemente was considered baseball royalty. As with all DK offerings, there are plenty of color photographs and other illustrations. I also appreciate the idea that of all the baseball players who lived and played decades before most of the readers of this book were ever born, that DK picked Clemente. You can make an argument that there have been better players than Roberto Clemente, but you will have a much harder time making a case for someone in the Major Leagues being a better person than he was.

Es un fantastico libro de historia familiar. Su claridad y simpleza lo hacen de facil lectura y es de mucha ayuda para los que como yo estan buscando sus raices. Es el libro mas completo que he visto de su indole y una inspiracion para todos aquellos que nos proponemos escribir nuestra historia familiar.

This book represents a twenty plus years journey of two meticulous social scientists through documents of marine anthropology, direct observations of coastal dwellers in the Caribbean and Eastern United States, the life histories of artisan fisherman and the history of Puerto Rico. The authors place the traditional, ancient occupation of fishing within the context of modern globalization to make clear how modern national and international economic trends affect individuals in terms of labor, community structure and family relations.

Griffith and Valdés Pizzini frame their field observations within an exhaustive review of marine and coastal research studies as well as allusions to the writings of Gabriel García Márquez and Octavio Paz. The use of this resource evokes in the reader emotions that favor identification with the book and with the subjects whose life histories are used to document the book.

The authors reflect a detailed knowledge of Puerto Rico’s coastal space, fisher family cycles, labor turnovers and fishing techniques which they use in a wider context to make comparisons with other Caribbean Islands and the U. S. Coastal environments. The field observations unmask the role of women in what they call “the entire social universe that is controlled and governed by women in fisher domestic circles.” The book presents the government efforts to organize fishers and describes the adjustments that they make according to their own circumstances and the external factors affecting them.

The dynamics of coastal affairs and the diversity of forces impinging upon fishing reveal throughout the book the multiple conflicts that exist in the sea fronts of Puerto Rico and most coastal areas of the world. Activities and social sectors that demand more space for development, recreation, business and international trade covet the finite nature of the coastal line.

Applied professionals and academicians should read this book. Managers of coastal affairs and policy makers could also acquire the needed perspective for understanding the economic interests and social trends affecting development of the coastal sector, its resources, communities and people. Academically speaking the book is a required reading in the areas of sociology, marine anthropology, labor relations and social change. No scholar interested in the Caribbean should miss reading this enlightening book.

If you need to read about Puerto Rico or are doing research, this should be your first stop. This book is the most comprehensive and well documented book ever written on the legal situation of Puerto Rico. Anybody who has anything to do with the island needs to read this book first.

"The Forts of Old San Juan" is the official National Park Handbook for touring Castillo de San Felipe del Morro and Castillo de San Cristobal in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The former, known as El Morro, was designed by Juan Batista Antonelli and built by 18th-century engineers. The fort covers over 5 acres and had the primary responsibility for defending the harbor of San Juan, doing so with batteries of cannon on four different levels. The latter, San Cristobal, is the largest of the San Juan forts, covering 27 acres, and protected the city's landward approaches. I wish I had this booklet when I visited the forts a couple of years ago because while visitors had a sense that these were an imposing pair of defensive positions, you get a more sophisticated understanding from reading it.

This booklet is divided in three parts: Part 1, Old Forts in a Modern World establishes the key idea that in fortifying San Juan the Spanish military engineers made maximum use of the city's natural defensive features and erected fortifications that controlled both land and sea approaches. Part 2, Gateway to the Indies provides the history of Puerto Rico and the importance of San Juan as a strategic seaport. This is where you will find a look at La Fortaleza, the first fort built to protect the harbor and city of San Juan. Small by European standards, its main purpose was to repel attacks by the Island-Carib Indians and not the Dutch (who destroyed the fort in 1625). However, it does give you a basis for comparison to the other forts. This chapter also looks at Sir Francis Drake's attack in 1595 and the Earl of Cumberland's attack in 1598 (a diagram explains how a siege worked circa 1700). Part 3, A "Defense of the First Order" explains how Puerto Rico's strategic significance compelled King Philip IV to repair and strengthen the fortifications to the massive edifices we can still see today. In 1797 the prolonged attack by General Ralph Abercromby and Admiral Sir Henry Harvey failed. However, the city fared less well when an American naval squadron commanded by Admiral William T. Sampson, including the U.S.S. Iowa, bombarded the forts.

Even though it has been a couple of years since I visited, the text is clear enough and the illustrations have enough details that it all readily came back to me. The handbook is illustrated with contemporary photographs, maps, and diagrams of the forts, along with a few historical paintings and illustrations. So if you are visiting San Juan and decide to visit the Forts of Old San Juan, pick up this handbook so you can not only understand the various architectural structures you will be seeing but also the history of the forts and the practical utility of the forts in defending the harbor and town of San Juan. If you have visited other National Parks and picked up other handbooks then you already know these are high quality efforts.

I wish this book would be updated.

I have read this story to second and third graders and the story keeps them entertained and interested. They have fun predicting what will happen next. The illustrations are true works of art. It can be used to introduce Puerto Rico and also to show that there were native people living in all areas of the "new world" before Europeans arrived. It can be a little tricky discussing a creation myth in a public school setting but the positives outweigh the negatives with this story.

This is one of the best summaries I have found of 500 years of military history under both Spain and the U. S. The book includes maps, plans of the major fortifications, and lists of prominent Puerto Rican military figures both in the U. S. and foreign armies.

The author, a graduate of the U.S. Air Force Academy, has taken full advantage of sources available in Puerto Rico, the U. S., and Spain to build a cohesive, carefully-developed timeline of the military activities (including foreign invasions and local uprisings) from the earliest settlement in 1508 down to the date of publication.