Rural sociology had its origin and growth as an academic discipline in the United States. The other social sciences—including general sociology, economics, political science, anthropology and historiography—were mainly imported from Europe and the British Isles. Rural sociology, however, was a United States “export” both to Europe and to Latin America.

This inverse process of diffusion deserves a brief explanation. Why did Rural sociology not originate in Europe? And, conversely, why did it take root in the United States? To answer the first question we may cite the following factors:

1. 1. During the latter part of the nineteenth century when the social conditions of rural people in the United States were critical, Europe was relatively stable. The peasant revolts of the earlier centuries had faded into history, feudalism, in its worst features at least, was no more. There were still agrarian problems, of course, including land fragmentation, but they were not serious enough to cause widespread unrest. Moreover, the restless ones were free to migrate to the New World. Europe, in short, was in the happy condition of being able to export its “problem” mainly to the United States.

El autor, que desde hace más de un cuarto de siglo viene participando activamente en reuniones de esta clase, en el terreno de la organización y del derecho municipales y especialmente en las últimas reuniones celebradas por la Asociación Interamericana de Abogados, conocida en los Estados Unidos por la sigla I.A.B.A., no perdería un solo instante en escribir el presente artículo si tuviera la más mínima duda acerca de la utilidad, de la conveniencia y de la necesidad de fomentar, de estimular, de apoyar por todos los medios a su alcance, las conferencias y congresos organizados para estudiar los defectos o las fallas de las instituciones. Sean estos los municipios o los poderes de gobierno, como el poder judicial, para analizar sus causas y buscar los remedios jurídicos o de otra clase, convenientes para subsanarlos, e impulsar de ese modo el perfecto funcionamiento de las instituciones jurídicas, el progreso social, en general, dentro de los moldes del llamado “Estado de Derecho”.

The Lauca River dispute between Chile and Bolivia may seem insignificant when compared to many of the major controversies of the postwar period. The Lauca is a 140-mile long narrow river that has its origin in the Andes of northern Chile and then meanders across the border into the Bolivian altiplano, where, after serving as a water supply to small Bolivian towns, it disappears in salty Lake Coipasa. The potential of the river is minor when compared to that of the Nile, Jordan, Indus, Mekong, Colorado, and many other rivers. Yet, Chile's action in April 1962, of diverting some of the waters to irrigate the small Sobraya and Azapa valleys of her northern desert, which provide food for the port of Arica, has proved to be of serious import.

The dispute has not yet been resolved and has gravely strained relations between Chile and Bolivia. The effectiveness of the Organization of American States has been brought into question, for while the Organization has settled many other disputes since 1948, it has been unsuccessful in this one, and Bolivia has shown its dissatisfaction by withdrawing from the Council several times.

O Brasil esteve solucionando o grave problema do tráfico negreiro de, pelo menos, 1815 a 1854. Ou seja: do Tratado que Portugal assinou com a Inglaterra em Janeiro de 1815, as medidas práticas que o Brasil adotou em decorréncia da Lei antitráfico de 1850. Nesse decurso de trinta e nove anos, largos e puxados trinta e nove anos, o jovem Brasil passou da condicáo de Colonia para a de país livre, o seu regime monárquico constitucional experimentou os arrancos e desequilibrios da deposigáo de Pedro I, das Regencias Trinas e Unas, dos varios movimentos federalistas, das muitas insurreigoes de escravos e do golpe de Estado que antecedeu a entrega do Trono ao pequeño príncipe D. Pedro. Igualmente, nesse mesmo período, o seu quadro económico se ampliou no sentido da maior complexidade da produgáo agraria e das atividades do comercio. E o poder político afinal definido ficou ñas maos dos senhores de escravos senhores do café, do acucar, do algodáo, do fumo — com a coparticipagáo dos senhores das minas, das fazendas de gado e do alto comercio de exportagáo e importaçáo.

As indicated by the voluminous professional and popular literature published over the past decade, there is now widespread interest in steps toward economic and political integration on a wide variety of regional and global bases. In this paper I intend to examine some of the issues arising from integration efforts. The geographic and functional bases of current integrational efforts are indeed numerous. It is fascinating to review the many reasons or motivations behind these striking developments of which the Central American Common Market is one important example. The reasons behind these developments are not new to this decade, but rather are the results of a more general concern or awareness of current problems and current possibilities. Attitudes and values are also undergoing changes.

Since Carlos Loveira's last novel was published in 1927, the whole way of life which it described—and described with what bitter disillusion!—has disappeared. The Cuba Loveira knew, and the Cuba he hoped would evolve, are both lost—perhaps irretrievably— but the novel itself, seen through the perspective of four decades and a social upheaval, now seems to have even greater values, both as a work of art and as a social document, than its first readers saw in it.

In 1922, a friend of Loveira, reviewing Los ciegos (his third novel), placed him in the first rank of Cuban novelists:

And he added that Los ciegos seemed to predict an obra maestra from the author's pen. Juan Criollo is that masterpiece.

It is not surprising that the academic community should be interested in probing the diplomatic role of U.S. business abroad. The business corporation, which has aptly been called the characteristic institution of American society, has been a prime force for change and economic progress, not only in industrialized nations but in the most remote and backward areas as well. As a leader in building a new society, U.S. business has had thrust upon it a diplomatic function (and one which is not merely an appendage of political diplomacy) that we are only beginning to discern in all of its implications.

Because of the magnitude and rate of growth of our economic involvement abroad, a few statistics may provide an adequate if hurried perspective of the issues and problems which I believe will necessitate rethinking the diplomatic stance of U.S. business. Over the two decades between 1940 and 1961, total U.S. foreign assets and investments rose from $12 billion to $80 billion. In Latin America, with which most of this paper will be concerned, U.S. direct investments now exceed $10 billion, U.S. companies pay one-fifth of all taxes, and employ a million and a half people. U.S. citizens living and working in Latin America number in the tens of thousands; there are about 17,000 in Venezuela alone.

No mucho después de los días de mayo de 1810 la población de los suburbios y de la campaña acude a participar de una revolución en cuyos preparativos no ha intervenido pero cuyo programa abraza con calor. El pueblo deja de ser la abstracción contenida en los impecables esquemas que los textos de política habían puesto en circulación para transformarse en una realidad tangible y no siempre agradable. Muchos de los autores de la Revolución observan con sorpresa y alarma como, al amparo de fórmulas demasiado generalizadoras, asoma —a veces espontáneamente, a veces digitada por aprovechados líderes— una masa iletrada a la que no consideran preparada para gravitar en la vida pública, una masa cuya vocación política no la habilita para asumir las responsabilidades que pretende. Para poder excluir esa presencia que empieza a ser molesta surge entonces la necesidad de precisar los objetivos, de matizar los planteos excesivamente simples, de equilibrar el concepto de libertad con el de autoridad.

Las Fuerzas Rurales de la Federación, commonly called the rurales, were a prominent institution of Porfirian Mexico and a significant instrument of the dictator's power. Contemporary travelers, journalists, and political propagandists either praised or condemned them and compared them to the Texas Rangers, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Spanish Guardia Civil, Rosas’ Mazorca, and even to Ivan the Terrible's Oprichniki. Almost all histories of Porfirian Mexico mention the rurales and indicate their significance to Diaz’ prolonged absolute control of the country. Without specific study and serious scholarship, however, the origin, nature, and exploits of the rurales have acquired legendary characteristics. Because of their relative success in curbing brigandage on the one hand and their alleged brutality on the other, they became symbolic of both the order and the ruthlessness of Porfirian Mexico. The popular accounts of the rurales are easily divided into two categories—viz., those of Diaz’ apologists and those of his detractors. The following observation by Ethel Brilliana Tweedie is typical of the former.

Most of the countries in the New World were created by economically motivated European colonizers who invaded this hemisphere and defeated the resident populations. The dominant cultural life of these areas is based on the institutions, values and expressions carried by these seekers after empire, as modified by conditions and cultures encountered in the new lands. This is as true of the West Indies as it is of the various larger regions of the two Americas, but the modifying factors are more numerous in these small Caribbean islands. Rarely is there just one European tradition affecting the culture of each of these islands; as European possessions during this era of large-scale wars in Europe, most of them changed hands repeatedly. More important, the establishment of the plantation system and the resultant waves of imported field workers from alien, non-European societies created a cultural conglomerate of incredible variety.