It is a paradox that historians of the Mexican Revolution have paid so little attention to the complex social phenomenon that has come to be called caciquismo. Caciques—for the moment, let us identify them as local bosses, strongmen, or chiefs—were such a plague on the Mexican rural populace during the porfiriato that “Mueran los caciques!” took its place alongside “Tierra y libertad!” and “México para los mexicanos!” as the central rallying cries of the 1910 Revolution. Moreover, it is difficult to refute John Womack's proposition that to capture the intent of Madero's slogan “Sufragio efectivo y no reelección,” still the first commandment of the Institutionalized Revolution, it should properly be rendered: “A real vote and no boss rule.” Now, though only recently, a steadily increasing number of studies at the regional level by historians and social scientists is beginning to document that the epic Revolution found its energies in the small towns and villages and that the millions who fought, although primarily moved by the promise of land reform, were more immediately preoccupied with the related problem of breaking the political and economic stranglehold of the local power-brokers.

In the last four decades, forces and events too obvious and too menacing for restatement here have prompted a dramatic increase in scholarly investigation of all facets of the African experience in the Western Hemisphere. The study of the black man in colonial Spanish America, which dates from the early seventeenth century, has profited as a matter of course from this development. The bibliography for the colonial period increases with every passing year, and virtually every region of Spanish America, from Hispaniola and Mexico to Argentina and Chile, is represented by at least one scholarly work. Further, continuing scholarly endeavor is certain to increase both the depth and breadth of our knowledge in the immediate future.

Shortly after the coup of 11 September 1973 in Chile, nine people came together in the Los Angeles area to express their outrage on film: Seven were students and teachers who had been in Chile, two were politically committed filmmakers. The product of this union was the fifty-five-minute documentary “Chile with Poems and Guns” which reached several thousand international viewers during the first year after its release. Twice aired on Los Angeles television, the film was selected for distribution by Tricontinental Film Center. It also received scholarly notice, being included on the October 1974 program of the Pacific Coast Council of Latin American Studies at UCLA and the November meeting of the Latin American Studies Association in San Francisco.

The study of Latin America in Japan prior to World War II was centered on the issue of migration, but as an area study field it is a product of Japan's economic expansion and relations with Latin America in the postwar period. After the war, a new wave of Japanese migration to Latin America was soon followed by the first government-sponsored team of social scientists who studied the living conditions of immigrants in Brazil. But the principal boost to the field was provided by the phenomenal economic growth experienced by Japan and the rapid development of trade, investment, and economic cooperation with Latin America. In 1958 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs took the initiative of establishing, with corporate support, the Latin American Society of Japan, whose main objectives were to gather and disseminate economic information on the region and to publish economic and business reports. As has been typical in other countries, economic ties were soon followed by an increase in university activity. In 1964, the first true area study program on Latin America was established at Sophia University; in the same year the first Japanese association of social scientists (mostly economists) working on Latin America was founded; and in the following year a Japanese association of Brazilian studies was organized. In 1967, the Research Institute for Brazilian Culture was organized at the Kyoto University of Foreign Studies, and the Institute of Developing Economies (which had begun its operations ten years previously as the Institute of Asian Economies) expanded its coverage to promote economic cooperation and trade with Latin America.

Recent criticism of modern Mexican art has generally ascribed the expressionistic quality of Orozco's oeuvre to international stylistic influences such as German expressionism, postimpressionism and fauvism. These international stylistic affinities are equated with the universal or modern aspect of the mural movement in contrast to its local, Mexican, iconographic and stylistic aspect.

The Organization of American States has published a series of eight volumes (paperback) which survey Latin American for 1970. Topics covered are: Situación Demográfica, Situación Económica, Situación Social, Situación Cultural, and Suplemento. Guillermo N. Fuentes was responsible for the preparation of these extensive collections of statistics. For information about these editions write to: General Secretary, Organization of American States, Washington, D.C. 20006.