The overthrow of Nicaraguan strongman Anastacio Somoza Debayle by the Frente Sandinista de Liberación Nacional in mid-1979 promises to stimulate academic research on contemporary Central America just as the rise of Fidel Castro and Salvador Allende did for Cuba and Chile. As scholars and policymakers contemplate the future of post-Somoza Central America, they will inevitably consider the role of the armed forces in each country. In recent years the military institutions have occupied key positions in national politics as the Central American nations have attempted to reconcile the often conflicting demands of economic development, political order, and social reform. This note is intended to serve as a guide to the existing social-science literature on the Central American militaries. Costa Rica, having replaced its army with a civil guard or police force in 1948, is mentioned only in passing. Although historically considered a part of South America, Panama is included here because it shares many characteristics with the Central American countries. Not surprisingly, the available literature is sparse in comparison with the sophisticated studies of the armed forces of Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Chile, and Mexico. Only Guatemala has inspired a significant output of scholarly analysis. Millett's work (1977) on the Nicaraguan national guard is the only published monograph concerning one of the Central American military institutions, although several unpublished dissertations have appeared and at least one valuable article exists for each country.

Much of the focus of, indeed much of the impetus for, the current discussion of science and technology policy for the Latin American industrial sector has involved comparisons of foreign and domestic ownership. While such traditional concerns as the quantity of repatriated profits and interference in domestic politics (in the case of foreign firms) continue to be important, much of the recent literature is on comparative financial performance, growth, technology, and the interrelationships among these elements. The following conclusion is ubiquitous: Domestic enterprises, due largely to “technological” shortcomings, are simply unable to compete with the foreign firms and are therefore restricted both to secondary positions within individual product markets and to the less profitable sectors.

Until recently, the Córdoba Reform of 1918 was the symbolic landmark in twentieth-century Latin American higher education. Achieving a pioneering victory in Argentina, the Reform soon became influential throughout much of the region, and university autonomy from government emerged as its most cherished legacy. Despite frequent violations, the principle of autonomy often promoted a substantial degree of university self-rule and even sanctuary for free expression. In 1968—fifty years after the Reform's genesis—the Mexican government's brutal repression of university students seemed to symbolize a secular change. Many observers feel that events of the last decade have reduced autonomy to little more than a cherished memory. Autonomy has indeed suffered a tragic fate in Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile, among the more important nations. But what about Mexico? This article argues that the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) remains substantially autonomous. This is, admittedly, a relative statement; no public university is completely independent of government control. However, UNAM seems to enjoy considerable self-rule and is notably autonomous in cross-national perspective.

Urbanization and the increasing concentration of population in the major urban centers in Latin America is often conceived as the manifestation of a convergent economic process, that of industrialization (Roberts 1978). Internal cityward migration and natural increase are two dominant contributors to the increase in urbanized population throughout most of Latin America and the Caribbean in the last four decades (Elizaga 1965, Clarke 1974, Davis 1972). In Latin American research, studies of internal migration and urbanization have proliferated, investigating regional origins, migration networks, migrant selectivity, aspects of migrant assimilation in the urban social, economic and political realms, and the character and nature of initial settlement (cf. Morse 1971 for a summary of studies written between 1965–70). By and large, previous research has not fully explored the social and spatial dimensions of the process whereby migrants select initial residential sites and subsequently relocate (exceptions include studies by Brown 1972, Cornelius 1975, Davies and Blood 1974, Vaughn and Feindt 1973, Ward 1976). In short, we know very little about the paths a migrant follows between the time he reaches the city and the time he settles into a secure and stable dwelling environment.

Desde su creación a la fecha la Comisión ha realizado tres simposios: Lima 1970, Roma 1972, y México 1974. En estas reuniones se ha presentado y discutido un total de 74 ponencias científicas (Lima 13, Roma 32, México 29), elaboradas por 50 especialistas de la región y por 24 latinoamericanistas norteamericanos y europeos. Estos 74 especialistas intercambiaron conocimientos y experiencias, y tuvieron contacto estrecho con otros 150 especialistas que participaron en estas reuniones como observadores y comentaristas. Dicho de otro modo, la Comisión ha sido vehículo de contacto y punto de reunión para el intercambio de conocimientos de más de 220 investigadores interesados en la historia económica de América Latina.

The phenomenon of peasant revolt in the Andean area of South America has been both sustained and violent from Spanish colonial times to the present. The revolt of Túpac Amaru II, who led a rebellion against Spanish colonialism near Cuzco in 1780, has been the best-known incidence of this phenomenon, although the southern highlands region, sometimes known as the mancha india (“Indian stain”), was the center of numerous local revolts during the period 1860–1920, and the focus of several peasant land invasions during the two decades 1950–70.