During the 1960s, several academics from the Department of Philosophy at the University of Chile became involved in a dispute concerning the aims of both the philosophical discipline and the university as a whole. Because this dispute turned into a conflict of national proportions and brought about the collapse of the administrative structure of the university in May of 1968, it raises a number of questions abut the motivations of these academics and the extent to which the philosophical discipline, as cultivated in Chile, inspired their words and deeds in relation to university affairs.

Although they represent a principal source of data for demographers, population censuses have not usually been undertaken for the benefit of population analysts. In ancient times, population enumerations were usually linked to the collection of taxes or to military conscription. Although in modern censuses such motivations are not entirely absent, other important considerations have emerged, such as equitable apportionment of representation in legislative bodies, the compilation of voting lists, and the necessity of having an accurate basis for the distribution of governmental funds, programs, and social intervention efforts. Nevertheless, one basic fact has never changed: population censuses are undertaken by political entities with politico-administrative goals.

Research covered in this issue includes research being carried out by institutions on the eastern seaboard of the U.S. It also includes general coverage of broad research programs of organizations such as CIDA, PIIP, etc. The next issue will cover research on Latin America being carried out at institutions in the mid-western part of the U.S. and in the northern half of Latin America. Coverage of research on Latin American topics being carried out in Europe is reported in Boletín Informativo sobre Estudios Latinoamericanos en Europa, a journal edited by Professor H. Hoetink, under the auspices of the Centro de Estudios y Documentación Latinoamericanos. A new journal, Informationsdienst der Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Deutschen Lateinamerika–Institute, second issue published in April, 1966, covers research on Latin America being carried out by German institutions. It is edited by Georg Thomas at Koln, Germany.

In 1968, in an article prepared for the American Historical Association Ad Hoc Committee on Quantitative Data (but not published until 1972), I discussed materials, opportunities, problems, and priorities for quantitative research in Latin American colonial history. Specifically, that article included a discussion of the evolution of quantitative studies on colonial Hispanic America, a description of the data available, possible topics for research, opinions on the future of quantification in the field, and an extensive bibliography. The present article is intended to complement that earlier piece—to discuss new factors giving impetus to quantitative history, to list some of the major contributions since 1968 in Latin American colonial history, to revise some old views, and to offer some new suggestions.

This report on the special sessions of Latin American historical demography, at the XLI International Congress of Americanists in Mexico City (2-7 September 1974), was prepared to present some current trends and research methods in the field. The sessions, held at the National Museum of Anthropology on 5-6 September, were preceded by an informal meeting of the participants at which the presentation and discussion of papers was organized. Elsa Malvido, coordinator of the special sessions, opened it with a few brief words of welcome.

War and revolution are the cataclysmic events of our age which affect man and society more profoundly than any other human phenomenon. In Russia and China war brought revolution. Today, in an age of competitive ideologies and competitive nuclear armament, men fear that revolution will lead to war.

The global conflicts that have wracked Eurasia in this century have not touched Latin America directly. The only international conflict of roughly comparable intensity was the Chaco War (1932–1936) in which hostilities were confined to two small powers, Bolivia and Paraguay. Bolivia's defeat was part of a train of events that lead directly to the Revolution of 1952.