In 1943 there appeared in Mexico City the first book in Spanish on the story of philosophy in Mexico written from a nonscholastic or lay standpoint. Its title is, simply, Historia de la filosofía en México, the author being Samuel Ramos (1897-1959) of Zitácuaro, Michoacán, a philosophy professor at the National University of Mexico. The pioneering work is tentative and modest in content but firm and ambitious in intent. It opens and closes with the same fixed idea in mind: To encourage Mexican thinkers to develop their own philosophy by integrating European philosophy with their national spirit; that is, by nationalizing philosophy itself. Put negatively and more effectively, the whole point of the author's endeavor is to get Mexican intellectuals out of the traditional habit of imitating the philosophies of others by inviting them to think henceforth on their own two feet about the fundamental problems of Mexico herself.

The International Instituut Voor Sociale Geschiedenis, or International Institute of Social History, located in Amsterdam, is well known as one of the world's leading centers for research on the history of labor movements and leftist political parties. It is also a major depository of archival material. However, scholars have largely neglected the Institute's extraordinary collection of Latin American materials. The purpose of this article is to describe the two largest bodies of Latin American holdings, those pertaining to Argentina and Brazil. For reasons of space, we have kept annotations to a minimum and have included only materials published before 1940, since they constitute by far the most significant portion of the Institute's Latin American collection.

The major objectives of this lecture to the Seminar on the Methodological Problems of Urban History were to share some recent advances in the application of computation to the social sciences and to express confidence that the diverse talents, viewpoints, and professional preparation of specialists from several disciplines would permit the formulation of new methods for the synthesis and analysis of available information to solve the problems which confront modern man. To establish a general methodology valid for future investigations in the field demands the creation of a system of information storage and retrieval which would allow investigators to manipulate vast quantities of data. Computers can offer several advantages to social scientists, among them:

Would I be wrong in detecting a whiff of odium scholasticum? I am clearly not popular for poking fun at the language of modern social science, but I remain utterly unrepentant. It reminds me too forcibly of Section E, Umbugotology and Ditchwateristics, of Dickens' Second Meeting of the Mudfog Association for the Advancement of Everything. But worse, in my paper I “ideate” some fanciful notions on autonomy.

Approximately five years have now elapsed since the establishment of Latin American studies in British universities on an institutional basis and, since the next quinquennium begins in less than two years' time, in 1972, and universities in Britain are already preparing their plans for that period, this may be an appropriate moment for taking stock of developments to date, and for speculating about the future. But in order to appreciate the current situation, it would be useful to set the subject in its historical context and to consider first the state of Latin American studies in Britain before the establishment of Centres and Institutes, and the reasons why they came into being.

Twenty-five years ago folklore scholarship in latin america was the result of the efforts of a handful of professionals and the contributions of a body of devoted amateurs, who operated independently and in isolation from one another. Today the changing picture of Latin American folklore research makes a review of the field highly appropriate. Outwardly there has been an increasing frequency and variety of publication, but more significant is a basic concern with a definition of folklore that will satisfy Latin American scholars. Accompanying this concern with a philosophy of folklore scholarship is an increasing emphasis upon methodology and the organization of folklore studies. Financial support for folklore investigation is more likely to be forthcoming now than a generation ago, although unfortunately there are exceptions.

The 1970s witnessed an outpouring of research on the Andean cultural tradition sufficient to place Andean studies among the well-established regional subspecialties of anthropology. Among the historic factors converging to produce this abundance was the emergence of a generation of fieldworkers trained by ethnohistorians such as John Murra, John Rowe, Herman Trimborn, and R. T. Zuidema. Their understanding of historical and intellectual activity in past Andean communities made it possible, even in the heyday of development theories, to appreciate the modern Andean tradition as an active and creative rather than merely resistant presence. At the same time, events within the Andean republics called forth new interest in the indigenous tradition. In Peru the Velasco regime (1968–75), with its far-reaching intervention into rural institutions, received both support and criticism from those whose knowledge of the Quechua countryside seemed suddenly valuable. In Ecuador the post-1974 oil boom awakened hope for a more “integrated” national state, thereby provoking debate (as yet inconclusive) between pluralist and assimilationist approaches to the problems of the multiethnic highlands. In all the Andean countries regional and national research institutions with periodicals and monographs of their own took form. Generally outside universities, and sometimes with support from sectors of the Catholic Church increasingly open to the study of local belief, they produced distinctive schools of thought fruitfully different from the academic tradition proper. Regional meetings such as the Congresos del Hombre Andino indicated the coalescence of an Andean field of study across national boundaries. In some places, self-mobilization of Andean communities and experimentation with bilingual media and institutions raised hopes for a definition of the Andean situation from the Andean side, a definition not precast in terms familiar to the Hispanic-oriented outsider.

The texts discussed below treat the problem of the relationship between economic and social development and the development of science and technology. The review is not proposed as exhaustive, but concentrates on the manufacturing sector; and it does not deal with specific literature concerning such important topics as agriculture, energy, transportation, and the relationship between science and technology policy and education (however, the first of these is treated in a complementary study [Albuquerque and Nascimento 1978]). Also, the description of science and technology policy measures and of the institutional apparatus that implements them is reduced to a minimum, although bibliographic sources in which more detailed descriptions can be found are indicated. Given these constraints, an attempt has been made to take into account the complexity of the topic and the variety of research that it has inspired. In this sense, contributions from noneconomists, notably sociologists and political scientists, are incorporated; we refrain, however, from any evaluation of the theoretical framework that guides such contributions.

Barring the outbreak of internecine conflict in Central America, the greatest challenge to the Nicaraguan Revolution lies in rural Nicaragua. As in most developing countries, the severest poverty in Nicaragua has always been found in the rural areas. Somewhat paradoxically, however, the rural areas of the country are also the source of the nation's wealth: 90 percent of the foreign exchange, so necessary to a small state like Nicaragua, is derived from agriculture. Moreover, around 70 percent of the population earn their living from the land. Consequently, meeting the promises of the revolution depends crucially on the performance of the agricultural sector.

With this ringing affirmation, Julien Bryan concluded Americans All, his first documentary about Latin America produced under the auspices of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (CI-AA) as part of the U.S. government's effort to foster hemispheric solidarity. By 1945 he had completed twenty-two more, including four on Latin America as a region; five on Chile; three each about Peru, Bolivia, and Uruguay; and one each concerning Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, and Paraguay. The CI-AA distributed the films to thousands of U.S. schools, clubs, and organizations during the war. After the conflict was over, they continued to be the standard educational films about Latin America until, by the 1960s, damage or obsolescence forced most prints out of circulation. For the historian, however, “obsolescence” is not an undesirable quality, and a careful screening suggests that these thirty-year old documentaries contain an extraordinary visual record of Spanish South America and provide insight into inter-American relations. The purpose here is to assess the value of Bryan's twenty-three films as historical evidence, based on an analysis of the narration and photography and taking into account the special nature of film as a source material.