For the period since independence, Jews do not appear in Latin American history as it is written today. That there are Jews in Latin America we know. But what role have they played in their nations' histories? How have they balanced their inherited tradition with the cultures of the Luso-Hispanic world? What has been the quality of their lives as Jews and as immigrants, nonconformists in societies that exact conformity as the price of acceptance? Most important from the perspective of Latin Americanists, how have Jews been perceived by the majority societies, and what do these perceptions reveal about the nature of these societies?

The following survey assesses the major periodical publications originating in Central America that contain data and information on the economic and social conditions of the countries of the region. The publications are categorized as statistics, newsletters, economic and political reports, journals, and bibliography. The number following each title refers to the publishing organization listed at the end of the text.

Professor Carmagnani's essay consists of two parts. In the first three-quarters of the essay, he rapidly reviews historical writing on colonial Mexico from about 1970 until 1981, identifying major topics, tendencies, and prospects for the future. In the second part of the essay, Carmagnani turns to some of what he believes to be the shortcomings of this decade or more of writing, especially what he views as its failure to establish a new periodization for the Mexican colonial centuries. In discussing this “inertia” in the new generation of social historians, he proposes a periodization that he believes more accurately “fits” the general findings of this recent historical corpus.

Few studies have focused on the subject of literacy among Mexican Americans in the nineteenth century. Richard Griswold del Castillo's “Literacy in San Antonio, 1850-1860,” stands out as one of the few studies of Mexican American reading and writing skills in nineteenth-century Texas. Its limitations are obvious, however. As a research note, it made no pretense at comprehensiveness. It focused on only one town, and the ten-year span it covered is rather narrow. Griswold del Castillo nevertheless touched upon an often neglected aspect of Tejano history—the immigrant dimension of the Chicano experience.

IESCARIBE (Institutes of Economic and Social Research of the Caribbean Basin) is an independent, nonprofit, nonpolitical, and scientific organization. It is engaged in planning and initiating studies useful to the economic development of the Caribbean Basin. The organization stresses applied research with a policy focus.

Professor Carmagnani has identified major themes and tendencies that have characterized recent studies on the social history of colonial Mexico. He correctly observes that historians have paid closer attention to the connections between population and resources, to the differences among regions, and to the internal development of Indian society. Moreover, he explains how advances in demography, economic history, and ethnohistory have all contributed toward a continued shift in emphasis away from political or “institutional” perspectives.

The outpouring of colonial Mexican social history that marked the 1970s had its origins in the previous decade. As Marcello Carmagnani's article points out, historians had come to appreciate the limits of institutional approaches to this field of inquiry. Contributions in demographic history, economic history, and ethnohistory strongly indicated that the dynamics of colonial life were other than had been identified to date and that even periodization and the eras of transition in the colonial period—let alone the reasons behind the transitions—might be different if measured by other standards.