History textbooks in Costa Rica, Guatemala and El Salvador, 1884-1927

VI Congreso Centroamericano de Historia. Ciudad de Panamá, República de Panamá. 22-26 de Julio, 2002The Liberals were in office in the decade of 1870 in Guatemala, El Salvador and Costa Rica. Their perception of modernization and progress led them to reinforce the State through the development of an adequate infrastructure for the production and exportation of coffee. The accomplishments were also used as a mean to communicate and promote their worldview, and to achieve social control. These actions included the creation of a banking system and the construction of ports, railroads, roads and communication (telegraph and telephone). Liberals also promoted reforms that led to new legislation, the creation of national institutions, and a centralization process and most important for the development of capitalism, and a new set of property rights. However reforms did not change the basic social structures in Guatemala nor El Salvador. Indigenous communities were overexploited, and in these countries the economy depended completely upon exportation and the elites had the economic and politic power. Coffee financed infrastructure, bureaucracy and education as well as defined the social structure of these societies. Furthermore material progress was well experienced in the cities, but not in the rural areas, thus modernization was an unequal experience.UCR::Vicerrectoría de Investigación::Unidades de Investigación::Ciencias Sociales::Centro de Investigaciones Históricas de América Central (CIHAC