What Holds a Country Together or Tears it Apart Crash Course Geography #36

Today we’re going to talk about the forces that affect a country’s stability. We’ll take a closer look at Costa Rica, Venezuela, Cuba, and Brazil and examine how the cohesiveness of these Latin American countries varies dramatically even though they are in a region with similar characteristics. As you’ll see, a country is like a figure skater, and maintaining peace and stability is much like a pair performing a “death spiral” balancing the forces attempting to pull a country apart and keep it together. Sources General CIA Factbook: Getis, Bjelland, and Getis. Introduction to Geography, 15 ed. McGraw-Hill Education. 2017. ISBN: 978-1-259-57000-1 Gregory, Derek, Ron Johnston, Geraldine Pratt, Michael Watts, and Sarah Whatmore, eds. 2009. The Dictionary of Human Geography. 5th ed. Willey-Blackwell. ISBN: 978-1-4051-3288-6 For a free and open source option for Intro to Human Geography: