Latin American historical research in France is limited, although interest is increasing. The evidence of this is readily apparent. For instance, the proposed book, Guide des sources de l'histoire de l'Amérique Latine conservées en France is still in draft and more than ten years behind schedule. An examination of articles on Latin America in French journals indicates the limited use of sources available in France. The National Archives receives only a few requests for archival searches, its files indicating only three such requests on the topic South America (Amérique du Sud). These include inqueries for materials on commerce between France and Latin America in the first half of the nineteenth century, sources for steamship packet-boats to America in the nineteenth century, and Anglo-French diplomatic relations with Latin America, 1836–48. There were no search requests for Brazil or Argentina, but six for Mexico. Yet archival sources of information about Latin America in France are abundant and provide materials not available elsewhere. This is particularly true for material on the former French colonies and on Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.

“Artists are originators who reflect their native land if they know how to understand the joys and sorrows in the soul of its people; if they interpret them in line, color, stone or clay, in music or by word. If they feel and comprehend its landscape. If they eternalize it.”

French efforts to develop latin american studies were noted by three recent conferences: one in Bordeaux, in 1963, on the “History of Latin America in the 20th century”; one in Toulouse, in 1964, on the “Problems of Cities in Latin America”; one in Paris, in October 1965, on the “Agrarian Problems in Latin American Countries.” This last conference, like the preceding ones, was organized by the C. N. R. S. It took place at the Latin American Institute of Higher Studies of the University of Paris, under the chairmanship of Pierre Monbeig, professor at the Sorbonne and director of the Institute, and of Francois Chevalier, professor at the University of Bordeaux and director of the French Institute of Studies of the Andes.

In the aftermath of the 1959 revolutionary triumph there began a massive impelled migration to the United States, paralleled in Cuban history only by the great exodus during the nineteenth-century wars of independence. Close to 500,000 Cubans had migrated to the United States by 1972.

The migration has shifted in size and has occurred intermittently since 1959, a consequence of the turbulent relations between the United States and Cuban governments. From January 1959 to October 1962, regular commercial flights existed between the United States and Cuba. During much of this period, American visas could be obtained in the United States embassy in Havana and in the Santiago de Cuba consulate. However, after diplomatic relations were severed (3 January 1961), the United States government generally waived the visa requirements for Cubans desiring to migrate. During this period, 153,534 Cubans registered with the Miami Cuban Refugee Center arld close to 200,000 had arrived in the United States by the time of the 1962 October missile crisis.

This research inventory was prepared to provide information on current research into quantitative historical studies and to bring up to date and expand the information provided in William G. Tyler's Data Banks and Archives for Social Science Research in Latin America (CLASP Publication No. 6, 1975). Information published in Data Banks is not republished here.

Latin america has suddenly become important to an increasing number of Canada's universities and colleges. Only three years ago the situation was not at all promising as D. B. L. Hamlin and Gilíes Lalande showed in their reports to the Canadian Universities Foundation, but a more favorable climate for developing programs in this area has emerged as the federal government, the Canada Council, university administrators, and individual faculty members have taken an interest in Latin America.

From 1908 until 1973, unknown to most of his countrymen and to Latin Americanists, a Peruvian photographer with an artist's eye compiled a remarkable visual and artistic record of the Peruvian highlands, a record that is just being brought to light. During these years, Martin Chambi, a professional, creative photographer, took more than sixteen thousand photographs, all of which have been retained by his family. Through the efforts of Edward Ranney and the photographer's oldest son, Victor Chambi, this invaluable resource will soon become available for use by authors, artists, and scholars of Latin America. Ranney, a free-lance photographer and a student of archeology, first became aware of Chambi's work during his field trips to Cuzco, Peru, where he spent many months producing his own work, including a forthcoming photographic document on Inca architecture. As he became more familiar with the elder Chambi's work, Ranney soon realized the early artistic eye of this photographer and the superb documentary record he left behind of people, places, and historical events in Cuzco and its surrounding archeological sites and indigenous cultures.

In Raising Questions Concerning Methodology in My Book, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910, Professors Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith have offered a reminder that statistics “do not speak for themselves.” The authors of “Notes on Quantitative History” are to be commended for undertaking a lengthy article examining some long-standing problems which historians face in attempting to understand the Latin American past.