Santo Domingo: A Country with a Future

The author offers a concise national survey that combines political history with practical appraisal of resources and institutions. It recounts colonial conquest, periods of foreign occupation and internal upheaval, successive constitutions and regimes, and the fiscal and administrative troubles leading to foreign intervention; then profiles topography, climate, geology and mineral potential, agricultural production and exports, population distribution, language, religion, education, and cultural life. Emphasis falls on economic conditions, land tenure, public finance and prospects for development, presenting data and observations intended to explain the nation's challenges and the possibilities for future progress.