New book looks back at 25 years since Independence

This year’s September celebrations are probably as varied as any in recent memory. There’s the music of course, sports are getting bigger and over the weekend the film “Three Kings” played to enthusiastic audiences at the Princess. Today the intellectual bar was raised with a book launching at the House of Culture.

Dr. Joseph Palacio, Co Editor, Taking Stock
“Where this book fills a void is where every morning we listen to the radio and talk shows and everybody has a problem and every body has a solution but very few people take the time to do the analysis, to look at the data. So this one says that certainly there are some issues out there but let us for once take the information, sift it and then come up with a conclusion.”

Jacqueline Godwin, Reporting
It may have come one year later but the three hundred and thirty four page book which was written to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of Belize’s Independence is a compilation of thirteen essays that critically looks at the country’s economy, environment, society and culture over the last quarter century. According to co-editor Dr. Joseph Palacio, the work was a challenge but ‘Taking Stock: Belize at 25 years of Independence’ is a must read for all especially students to help in their research. Palacio described volume one as honest, provocative and challenging

Dr. Joseph Palacio
“These are all relatively unbiased, very, very deep, analytical works that go beyond the realm of just of knee jerk reactions out of bias. There are very much collection of independent research. We’ve been looking also for depth so that these are not simple bits and pieces of things, they are well researched.”

The book was co-edited by Dr. Joseph Palacio and Barbara Balboni and features a total of fourteen contributors.

The book was published by Cubola Productions.