La latinoamericanística, una de las más jóvenes ramas de la ciencia soviética, tiene raíces que se remontan hacia un pasado lejano. En Rusia el interés hacia América Latina acrecentó especialmente a principios del siglo XIX. La guerra por la independencia de 1810-1826 inspiró una profunda compasión de la opinión pública rusa progresista. En tiempos prerevolucionarios unas expediciones rusas visitaron los países de América Latina. Pero solamente después de la Gran Revolución Socialista de Octubre, que fue un momento crítico en las relaciones con las estados latinoamericanos, se comenzó el estudio sistemático de los problemas de los países del continente.

Two factors have been instrumental in drawing scientists and scholars to northwestern Peru: oil resources and the climatic phenomena known as El Niño. During the past seventy-five years many aspects of the geology, paleontology, geography, climate, botany, zoology, and archaeology of the region north of the Sechura Desert have become well known. Due to the attention that scientists and the Peruvian government have paid to this area, the departments of Piura and Tumbes are scientifically the best known regions of Peru.

As in the case of Mark Twain, the reports of the death of the Organization of American States (OAS) are greatly exaggerated. Certainly it is not operating at peak performance. However, neither is it the moribund institution that the mass media would have us believe—although some recent reports of the General Assembly meeting in Santiago have given us glimmerings of hope for a rebirth. It is the purpose of this report to investigate the status of one of the major aspects of the contemporary OAS reform efforts—the peaceful settlement of disputes within the organization's structure. The indefinite postponement of this particular issue cannot belie the fact—amply demonstrated in the debates of the Special Committee to Study the Inter-American System and Propose Measures for Restructuring It, the Conference of Plenipotentiaries to Amend the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance, and the Permanent Council—that the resolution of disputes is of fundamental importance to the nations of the hemisphere and that there is some degree of relative satisfaction over past OAS performance in that area. It would thus be appropriate for students of inter-American relations to take a greater scholarly interest in the OAS than is now the case.

The most politically sensitive question in studies of economic growth is: What is the optimal relationship for the distribution of income and wealth to economic growth? The rich often diversify their assets, and thus it is not easy to know the total wealth of an individual, or the distribution of wealth for a nation. For this reason, the analysis presented here for Argentina from 1914 to 1969 makes only brief reference to the influence of the distribution of wealth and focuses instead on the relationship between income distribution and economic growth. Income distribution in other nations also is discussed in order to evaluate the possibility of utilizing their experience to judge the Argentine case. The relationship between increases in workers' and entrepreneurs' income and those in investment is also examined, for an economy will grow only if investment takes place. Moreover, because funds spent on private consumption cannot be invested and much past economic analysis has studied the relationship between changes in income and in consumption, this relationship must be considered in the Argentine case. We will look at several categories of income, taking into account the effects of inflation and of ownership of selected categories of wealth.

One cannot help but ask, “Are international businesses, like the fabled Don Quixote, making dragons of windmills?” We have seen a great rise in international business investment. We have also seen a corresponding rise in business attempts to prevent an awareness by local nations of this increased foreign investment. The general feeling is that increased awareness will lead to greater resentment. The question, however, has not been directly asked: What happens to the evaluation of foreign firms in a specific setting in Latin America as the rate of foreign investment climbs and is more keenly perceived? In an attempt to determine if we are realistically assessing the situation in Latin America, a study was conducted in four Central American countries: El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica. These countries were selected because they have been among the rapidly developing countries of Latin America since the formation of the Central American Common Market (CACM) in the early 1960s, receiving considerable foreign investment.

The role of the dissertation as part of academic preparation is generally accepted and unquestioned. The dissertation is intended to initiate students into serious research in their chosen field. However, what happens to the research, once completed, is another question. Apparently very few have addressed this question, and their findings are not consistent. McPhie, in a study of dissertations completed in social studies education, measured the dissemination of dissertations via library circulation. He concluded that: “These data on library circulation, even when viewed with caution, would seem to indicate a rather meager use of some potentially valuable findings.” He also found that nearly two-thirds had not published even one article from their dissertations. In a more recent study of Ph.D. dissertations in sociology, Yoels found a similar picture. He concluded, after analyzing citations to Ph.D. dissertations in the two most frequently cited journals in sociology, that “the likelihood that dissertations will be widely disseminated appears to be slim.” However, in a recent and more complete study, Hanson found that dissertations are more widely used than is indicated in the above studies. He concludes that: “When one broadens the definition of dissemination to include the media of books, monographs, chapters, presented papers, journal articles (including those not appearing in the two major journals), research bulletins, and miscellaneous forms during the professional life of the Ph.D. sociologist, a picture of more extensive transmission of dissertation results emerge. A conservative estimate would be that findings from a substantial majority of dissertations are disseminated through various media at some point in time.”

Detailed analyses of ancient stone tools, or lithic analyses, were performed by archaeologists as early as the second half of the nineteenth century in Europe, the Near East, and North America. However, it was not until the past thirty years that lithic analysis became a standard part of prehistoric research in Mesoamerica. The reasons for this belated beginning involve the dominant humanities-art history orientation toward much of Mesoamerican archaeology prior to the 1960s; the extraordinary richness, complexity, and accessibility of other cultural components (particularly architecture, hieroglyphics, ceramics, and sculpture); and the lack of quantitative dating techniques. The paucity of reliable dating techniques until quite recently led archaeologists into elaborate attempts to date the past by using a variety of subjective ordering techniques. It is therefore not surprising that, prior to the last ten years, most Mesoamerican lithic analyses had as their major objective the isolation of chronologically significant classes. These were discovered and defined at both the typological and the attribute (or modal) level of classification.

Library cooperation on regional and statewide levels has helped to expand significantly the collections of individual research libraries through cooperative purchasing policies, cataloging networks, union lists, interlibrary loan services and other means. However, access to the contents of these materials is also essential if this vast body of information is to be utilized fully. Books on specific topics can be found with relative ease by searching library subject catalogs, printed bibliographies, and specialized data bases. On the other hand, the wealth of information that appears regularly in periodical literature is all but lost unless it is adequately indexed.

El 1° de abril de 1967 comienza a funcionar el Departamento de Sociología de la Fundación Bariloche, creado sobre la base de un grupo de trabajo en Sociología. En 1974 se transforma en Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, con el ingreso de un grupo de trabajo en Ciencia Política. En sus inicios el Departamento contó con tres investigadores de planta. Actualmente su número es de once. Computando el número de estudiantes realizando trabajo de posgrado, se llega a veinticuatro miembros académicos en el Departamento. Siete miembros no académicos cumplen funciones de apoyo técnico-administrativo.