Note: I presented the original version of this work at the “Seminar on History and Human Sciences,” held at the University of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, May 1975. In August 1975 it appeared as Document No. 1 of the series CEDES publishes for the “Working Group on the State” of the Consejo Latinoamericano de Ciencias Sociales (CLACSO). The version presented herein was prepared in December 1976. Despite all that has happened since, I have restricted myself to corrections of style and to doing away with some unnecessary paragraphs, following the useful suggestions of LARR'S reviewers. In other words, I have overcome the temptation to rewrite this work, which I might have done, above all, to emphasize even more the attempts to stabilize economic variables (including but not limited to inflation) of the period I call the “orthodoxy” and expressly to admit the possibility that cases such as Chile and Uruguay may turn, in a socially even more oppressive sense than the “deepening” that I deal with here, towards a “re-agrarianization” or a “re-primarization” of their productive structure. I would also like to think that today I could present a more sophisticated approach to the theoretical problems surrounding the concept of state. But it is not a question of extemporaneously introducing these considerations here-considerations that owe much to criticisms received on the original version of this article–but, instead, of making timely presentation of them in future works. One explanation is necessary on a point that has led to some misunderstanding: when I speak of “mutual indispensability” I am referring to the relationship that exists between the bureaucratic-authoritarian state (once implanted) and international capital. In contrast, when in other works (above all, Modernization and Bureaucratic-Authoritarianism) I have dealt with the factors that tend to provoke the emergence of this type of state, I have speculated on its “elective affinity” with a certain type of capitalism and its crises. The difference is subtle but important, because it not only refers to two temporally different moments but also because it indicates the distance separating what is mutually indispensable (once the state has been implanted) from a strong but undetermined likelihood (before implanting it) that still leaves room for purposeful political action.

The recent literature dealing with Mexico in the nineteenth century is massive. This motivated us to the task of reviewing the material published since the Third Reunion of Mexican and North American Historians at Oaxtapec in 1969. Initially over 450 titles were identified, dealing with all aspects of the period. Our original intention was to review the literature in Spanish, since that material is already becoming difficult to locate, but our attempt to treat material in only one language became unworkable. We also had planned to organize the essay conceptually rather than chronologically, but too many important studies were left out. So we have reluctantly returned to the traditionally accepted periodization of political history: independence, early republic, reform, and the porfiriato. Limitations of space forced the elimination of sections dealing with local, diplomatic, intellectual, and cultural history.

“Artists are originators who reflect their native land if they know how to understand the joys and sorrows in the soul of its people; if they interpret them in line, color, stone or clay, in music or by word. If they feel and comprehend its landscape. If they eternalize it.”

The history of the Pizarros, conquerors of Peru, is inseparably bound with images of swine. If we are to believe the chronicler Gómara, the Pizarro-pig association began when the illegitimate infant Francisco was abandoned at a church door, where he survived by suckling a sow for several days. Later, according to Gómara, the young Francisco's father recognized his offspring, but only to make him his swineherd. Though the former of these two stories is probably fantasy, the latter should not be rejected out of hand, as will become clear later. But whether true or not, the legend of the swineherd-turned-conquistador has sparked the historian's imagination for centuries.

The unusually rapid pace of economic growth in Brazil's second major cyclical upswing in the postwar era (1968–74) has given rise to extensive comment and analysis. Much has been written about this experience and a “model” of Brazilian development that invariably emerges from these analyses emphasizes the following features: (1) rapid industrial growth; (2) the remarkable growth of exports; (3) an income concentrating wage policy; (4) institutional change creating a more effective and income elastic tax system; (5) reformed capital markets indexed for inflation and a semifloating exchange rate; (6) increased savings and investment; and (7) a rise in the foreign debt.

The pulperos were the largest group of small, independent entrepreneurial storekeepers officially categorized and supervised in Spanish America during the colonial period and the nineteenth century. There are no studies of them. There were other small storekeepers, such as owners of bakeries or fish stores, who were far fewer in number, or artisan storekeepers, who occasionally were many in number but who were craft oriented rather than purely business oriented. What follows is a preliminary report. A final analysis and presentation must await an intensive, long-term study of the pulperos and bodegueros in Caracas, Medellín, or Buenos Aires, as circumstances permit, that will not be completed for several years.

A central issue in the analysis of military regimes in Latin America is their policy impact. How successful are military governments in promoting economic development? How do their policies and performances compare with those of civilian governments? The sheer volume of research on the causes of military takeovers in Latin America implies that regime changes have important consequences. Yet to date we are far from having satisfactory answers to the questions posed above. As a recent study of public policy in Latin America noted, “If students of Latin American politics were to inventory verified propositions regarding the performance of Latin American regimes, the resulting list might not exceed zero” (Ames and Goff 1975, p. 175).

The broad nature of the task of summarizing the state of our knowledge of the agrarian history of Puerto Rico in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is counterbalanced by the scarcity of literature on the topic. In many cases it has resulted in generalizations and over simplifications that cannot be avoided at this time. This survey is restricted to the commercial agricultural activities—sugar, coffee, and tobacco—since these industries shaped the economic history of the island in the period under consideration. More questions are raised than are answered. As a result, it is hoped that the topical areas touched upon will become objects of future research.

“We went to visit neighbors and found brothers.” So began the text of the Rockefeller report on United States-Latin American relations in 1969. The phrase captures not only a part of the governor's personal style, but also some themes of inter-American relations. Many scholars and public officials in the United States start their analyses and their policies from the following premises: there is a special relationship between the United States and Latin America, a positive, cooperative, warm, quasi-familial bond quite beyond the ordinary interstate bond; and there is a mutuality of interests among these countries of the Western Hemisphere that resembles family ties in the best sense. In case these premises are not self-evident, it is appropriate to use a rhetorical style more positively effusive than perhaps the facts may warrant.

The dependency perspective has become a major thrust, both in bourgeois and Marxist conceptions of development and underdevelopment in Latin America, but the distinctions between the two interpretations have been blurred. No unified theory of dependency yet exists, but a variety of theoretical tendencies tends to cluster in the literature on dependency. The discussion that follows differentiates between the bourgeois and Marxist interpretations by focusing on some fundamental weaknesses of dependency theory that emanate among those who utilize a Marxist analysis. In particular, there is concern that dependency theories ignore social classes and class conflict or that these theories tend to present mechanical schemes in which external rather than internal aspects are determinant. Further, it is argued that dependency theories are nationalist in ideology and advocate autonomous capitalist development rather than offering solutions or strategies for the transition from capitalism to socialism.

Se ha dado en llamar “novela de la violencia” en la literatura colombiana, a toda aquella producción novelística que refleja la situación sociopolítica de Colombia durante las décadas del cuarenta y del cincuenta. En este período el país se vio envuelto en una serie de luchas internas que afectaron profundamente la situación socioeconómica de Colombia, especialmente en lo que se refiere a la población campesina.

La presente contribución es sólo una aproximación al tema propuesto. Suma de problemas más que respuestas. Catálogo de líneas posibles de investigación de un tema que adquiere, a veces, por motivos ajenos al interés científico, particular trascendencia. En la misma, se dan por supuestos, los elementos constitutivos básicos al igual que los aspectos meramente épocales, brindando los retazos multicolores de un cajón de sastre, sólo unidos entre si por un vertebral hilo conductor, la percepción de quien dedicara gran parte de su labor investigativa al período en análisis.

The creation of the Andean Pact in 1968 was accompanied by a chorus of enthusiastic official pronouncements and renewed scholarly interest in Latin American integration. In ensuing years, each new accomplishment and each new crisis in the Andean Pact has brought waves of official commentary and academic analyses.

Twenty years ago the first publications began to appear in Argentina of a loosely confederated group of writers, leftist in political persuasion, who took strident exception in culture to both the old oligarchic tradition and to the parvenu peronista establishment. During the years of the peronista government, the writers and intellectuals who supported Perón had been successful in imposing their own persuasions on the universities and publishing media at the expense of the old guard, represented by the literary supplements, Sur, the Academia Argentina de Letras, and the Jockey Club. The young leftists born around 1920 had been snubbed by the old-time writers and persecuted by the peronista regime. Their emergence as a loosely unified assertion of leftist political and cultural values, supported by a similar affirmation in postwar Europe, is a major literary phenomenon in mid-century Argentia.

This section on Historical Statistics is designed as one of the first steps in a process that would make it possible to assemble, for Latin America, a reference work comparable to the Historical Statistics of the United States. This volume assumed that its readers would be composed of those with some knowledge of how statistics were compiled and used. It saw itself as fulfilling two functions, collecting and referring. “The collecting function consists of assembling, selecting, and arranging data from hundreds of sources and making them available within a single source. The referring function consists of text annotations to the data which act as a guide to sources of greater detail. The annotations also define terms used in the tables and include essential qualifying statements.” The volume contains abundant statistics on economic, political, and social aspects of the United States, divided into twenty-six categories of data, and makes it easy to test many hypotheses about American historical development. Similarly, a Historical Statistics of Latin America would provide the statistical basis for the evaluation of many hypotheses about Latin American history, the evaluation of which currently rests upon qualitative evidence.

The history of the Argentine interior during the nineteenth century has often escaped the attention of researchers attracted to the dramatic economic and political growth of the eastern riverine provinces. Included in this oversight has been the plight of the rural laboring classes, unless associated with studies of immigrants. It has been easier to trace the impact and lifestyles of coastal elites—the estanciero, the merchant, the caudillo, and the politician—and the urban working class, than to reconstruct the life of the provincial peon. The study of the lower classes in general has been further impeded by the dramatic but stereotyped visions of the gaucho and other rural characters immortalized by writers such as Sarmiento, Hernández, Güiraldes, and Martínez Estrada. Finally, the illteracy of creole workers has left us with limited personal records of their existence. Yet despite all the inconveniences involved in the study of the rural working class, it is still possible to reconstruct aspects of its social, political, and economic conditions.

In March 1973, for the first time since the military coup of 1966, a presidential election was held in Argentina. It also was the first time since 1955 that Peronist parties were allowed to present candidates in every province. The present note originated in an initiative by Darío Canton to collect occupational and electoral data from polling places in several Argentine cities. He had the cooperation of Beba Balvé and Lucía Osvaldo of the Centro de Investigaciones en Ciencias Sociales, Buenos Aires. The three were responsible for gathering data in Buenos Aires (Canton), Rosario (Balvé), and La Matanza (Osvaldo). Subsequently, collaboration with researchers Jorge R. Jorrat and Héctor Caldelari from interior provinces made it possible to include comparisons with data from Córdoba and Tucumán. The analysis of the data and, ultimately, this note are the sole responsibility of the two authors whose names appear above.

An increasing amount of research has been undertaken in the last decade on the power structure of the Empire of Brazil (1822–89). In common with similar work on the rest of Latin America, many of the studies on Brazil have adopted the concept of the elite for their theoretical framework. And, as elite studies must do if they are to be more than speculative, several of the works have drawn on prosopography, or collective biography, to support the interpretations of the power structure that they advance. If the results have not, in general, been entirely satisfactory, this is largely due to the limitations in the prosopographical materials used. Since the materials have not easily lent themselves to a proper quantitative approach, they have been used selectively in the form of examples, the validity and relevance of which must always be suspect.