The study of the economic development of the Latin American countries has been attracting increasing interest, both in Europe and in the United States and in the countries of the Third World generally. An independent political life, which began practically at the same time as the Industrial Revolution, and an even longer experience of the international division of labour system as exporters of raw materials, single out this group of countries from among the now numerous family of nations with so-called underdeveloped economies. To these reasons must be added the growing awareness that, to a greater extent in Latin America than in any other important areas, obstacles to development are mainly of an institutional nature, a circumstance that makes it doubly difficult to try to identify evolutional trends in the region. Moreover, the problems posed by economic development at its present stage are leading Latin American peoples to see their situation in more truthful terms and to value those aspects that constitute the features of a common cultural personality. This book was written with the dual purpose of helping students outside the area to form some idea of the socio-economic profile of the region and of contributing to the provision of a wider perspective for studies of the development of individual Latin American countries. In seeking to avoid dealing with each country in isolation - which would be to ignore the existence of a cultural reality in process of becoming homogeneous- I have also tried to avoid giving the false impression that there is a Latin American economic system.