El PEHESA es un programa asociado al Centro de Investigaciones Sociales sobre el Estado y la Administración y que tiene por finalidad impulsar los estudios de historia social y económica. Está integrado por nueve historiadores, tres de los cuales son investigadores de planta del CISEA. Son objetivos del PEHESA estimular investigaciones originales tanto de la Argentina como los estudios comparativos de los países de América Latina. En este sentido no sólo contribuye con sus propios proyectos en marcha, sino también, propicia el intercambio y colaboración con otros investigadores u otros centros académicos que desean realizar estudios en este campo. El PEHESA pretende asegurar la continuidad de las actividades mediante seminarios, reuniones y conferencias sobre temas de esta especialidad, a los que también son invitados investigadores de otras instituciones u organismos. Asimismo ha proyectado la realización de cursos y seminarios para graduados que no han tenido la oportunidad de llevar a cabo este tipo de actividad en otros ámbitos universitarios y científicos. Asimismo es de fundamental interés para el programa mantener vinculaciones con instituciones y personas dedicadas a los estudios sociales en general y a los problemas históricos en especial, tanto del país como del exterior, a fin de mantener un intercambio rico y vivaz, indispensable para desarrollar todas las inquietudes intelectuales y crear vínculos sólidos y permanentes.

This Study was conducted under the auspices of the Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs, the organization of institutional members of LASA. Needless to say, the conclusions expressed here are those of the authors alone, and not those of the project's sponsors. The study focuses primarily on teaching programs, and specifically on the courses announced in the college catalogues. Clearly, there are other ways of proceeding and there are other types of information about Latin American studies programs that would be of value. It should also be borne in mind that the information given in such catalogues is only an approximate description of reality. However, the subject matter covered was believed to be that of greatest interest in view of the limitations of resources and personnel available.

In the present issue, LARR initiates a change in its Current Research Inventory section. The Research Inventory now will be published only once a year, in the final number of each volume, rather than in three installments broken down along geographical lines.

The unusually rapid pace of economic growth in Brazil's second major cyclical upswing in the postwar era (1968–74) has given rise to extensive comment and analysis. Much has been written about this experience and a “model” of Brazilian development that invariably emerges from these analyses emphasizes the following features: (1) rapid industrial growth; (2) the remarkable growth of exports; (3) an income concentrating wage policy; (4) institutional change creating a more effective and income elastic tax system; (5) reformed capital markets indexed for inflation and a semifloating exchange rate; (6) increased savings and investment; and (7) a rise in the foreign debt.

The most prevalent criticism of U.S. policy toward Latin America is that it takes Latin America for granted or that Latin America would be better off if it did. According to this view, Latin America is either neglected or treated shabbily. The florid rhetoric that U.S. policymakers sometimes use to describe the “special relationship” with Latin America raises expectations that are never fulfilled. Abraham Lowenthal has repeatedly described this policy cycle as “a burst of interest followed by concrete decisions that contradict the very policies just announced.” He continues, “Whether calling its approach a ‘Good Neighbor Policy,’ an ‘Alliance for Progress,’ [or] a ‘Mature Partnership,’ one administration after another has promised to improve U.S.-Latin American relations,” but all have failed.

“For Long it has Been the Conventional Wisdom—Repeated ad nauseum without ever an attempt at careful empirical demonstration—that the quality of Latin American studies is the lowest of all area scholarship. This judgment is clearly false for anthropology, history, and language and literature. How true is it for political science, one of the most maligned of the disciplines?” Thus, the question posed by a leading political scientist during the disciplinary soul-searching which followed in the wake of the Camelot affair. Perhaps none of the disciplines concerned with Latin American studies have been so subjected to self-conscious evaluations and assessments in recent years. While much has represented professional cocktail-gossip and conventioneering punditry, it has generally reflected the less than edifying overview of Merle Kling in the early 1960's. Countless political science graduate students with Latin American interests have read his assessment:

A little more than fifty years ago, French medievalist Marc Bloch (1928) tried to persuade his fellow historians of the importance and usefulness of the “comparative method.” Explanations, he argued, based on “those proverbs of common-sense psychology which have neither more nor less validity than their opposites” had to be replaced by causal explanations arrived at with the help of systematic comparison. In response to these exhortations, most historians, as Bloch himself noted, “express polite approval and then go back to work without changing their habits.” Nevertheless, the last decades have seen a remarkable growth in comparative studies in history as well as in the social sciences in general. Since 1959, the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History has played a crucial role in this regard. Yet the results of comparative historical studies have not been such as to challenge the skepticism of many historians who associate comparative approaches with facile analogies, pseudo-similarities, and questionable generalizations. Comparison too often seems to imply the sacrifice of the unique and differentiating features of each situation in the past for the sake of some broad scheme. Many historians are put off by social scientists, such as sociologist S. N. Eisenstadt (1963), whose ambitious comparative schema seem marked by typologizing with little empirical basis. To quote Bloch once more, the empirical historian will probably never become a philosopher of history or a sociologist although “he may, according to his state of mind, grant them admiration or a skeptical smile.”