Exploring Eco-Tourism in the Original Banana Republic

Honduras, we learn in Elisabeth Eaves’s fourth Slate dispatch this week, is where short-story writer O. Henry had been exiled to in the 1890s when he coined the phrase “banana republic.” Her fine series of stories, beginning with Monday’s installment, looks at whether the country is benefiting from the rise of eco-tourism. Tomorrow’s piece, she tells us, will touch on Mel Gibson and the ancient Mayans. Eaves reviewed “The Darjeeling Limited” for us last fall.

Photo by Lauri Vain via Flickr, (Creative Commons).

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