The problem of the brain drain—movement of highly skilled personnel across national borders—has been an object of increasing concern during the last two decades. International agencies, especially those linked with the United Nations, have seized the subject as one of the clearest manifestations of international imbalances in favor of the developed’ countries (United Nations, 1971; Kidd, 1967).

It is clear, despite variations across countries, that loss of professionals represents a significant cost for many nations, especially less developed ones. Recent data from three widely different countries may be used to illustrate such costs: from 1955 to 1968 Colombia lost 20,506 professionals to the United States; at an estimated cost of U.S. $8,000 for the training of each individual, Colombia made a contribution to the “development” of the United States of $164,048,000 during the period.

By the application of fresh analytical approaches such as prosopography and the concepts of “secular trend” and “conjuncture” pioneered by the Annales school, historians are at last beginning to probe the social and political structures of Latin America in the national period. What before had been surmised or supposed, particularly in regard to the dominance of political and social life by elites, can now be quantitatively confirmed, while the identification of secular trends permits the historian to penetrate behind the confusion of the incidentals to the basic characteristics of the different nations and their evolution over time.

The standard interpretation of Imperial Brazil (1822-1889) has until recently been that of a stable but anomalous monarchy dominated for most of its existence by its ruler Pedro II. The aging of the Emperor, the abolition of slavery on which the regime is conceived as being based, the discontents of the military, and the inevitable advance of Republicanism have been taken as the principal causes for the collapse of the Brazilian Empire on November 15, 1889.

A number of excellent studies of the U.S.-Mexican border have indicated that the border is occasionally a barrier but more often a permeable membrane through which goods, services, and people can filter. Employment practices and reciprocal trade across the border, together with tourism, have increased the need for policy cooperation among the jurisdictionally distinct but functionally integrated border communities. Our study represents an exploratory effort to find out how border cities are responding to this imperative of greater policy cooperation despite the presence of an international boundary. We selected the cities of Laredo and Nuevo Laredo for our first analysis of policy cooperation because our preliminary investigations of twin cities had persuaded us that relations between the Laredos were numerous, complex, and friendly. The two cities were obviously interdependent; the incentives to achieve a cooperative community appeared to be strong.

Among the thousands of disillusioned republicans who left Germany after the revolutions of 1848 was a Jew named Isidoro Epstein. He was one of the small number of forty-eighters who chose to migrate to Mexico. There the record of his varied career as statistician, mapmaker, educator, publisher, and journalist illustrates how the skills and talents of a professionally trained foreigner met the needs of Mexico as these needs were perceived and defined by the Mexican elite of the second half of the nineteenth century. His career as outspoken liberal editor of German language newspapers, however, was marred by conflict with a German community that was divided in its interpretation of German nationalism and in its feelings about liberals and Jews. Both aspects of Epstein's life in Mexico, from his immigration in 1851 until his death in 1894, demand attention and prove to be fascinating.