The Canadian involvement in Caribbean America—and by this I automatically include the Hispanic Caribbean, French, and Dutchspeaking places, as well as the English-speaking Commonwealth Caribbean—has followed two traditional streams.

The first is Canada's private sector involvement—substantial Canadian commitments in some countries like Jamaica, Guyana, and the Dominican Republic, typically concentrated in extractive industries and banking. The second is with the public sector, in Commonwealth Caribbean islands, but with a mix of Canadian private/public roles in some important cases.

More diffusely spread, the public sector side includes capital grants and loans made through governments or international banks to develop new private industry, as well as for genuine public sector and social development schemes. The latter would include government-to-government aid, for example, assistance to the University of the West Indies, Mona, Jamaica or the University of Guyana, teacher training programs, CUSO (Canadian University Service Overseas) community work, the missionary role of the various Canadian churches, chiefly the Roman Catholic.

In this paper it is intended to present the “political ethnography” of Villalta, a community in the Dominican Republic, from the period before the rise of Trujillo until May 1968, when municipal elections were held throughout the country. The principal concern is to show how the power structure and system of patronage which developed in Villalta during the Trujillo years has responded to the political fortunes of the country since the death of Trujillo.

Much of the discussion will deal with a small group of men who are the principal dispensers of political patronage and who, over the years, have represented the community to the outside. At lower levels, those who acquiesce to the judgment of these men frequently do so in accordance with patron-client ties. Because of both political and economic change within and outside the community, the basis on which this acquiescence has rested, has undergone change and the position of the power-holders has been rendered more tenuous.

Critics have written at some length about the “magic realism” in Alejo Carpentier's novels and his original treatment of historical material and peculiar concept of time. Without wishing to ignore the importance of these aspects in a close examination of Carpentier's vision of life in a New World setting, something more can be said about his ingenious choice and use of source material.

In a novel like El reino de este mundo (1949) the extraordinary liveliness of the narrative depends, ultimately, upon a subtle interweaving of historical and fictional material and the care taken in selecting the former. Carpentier has a scholar's eye for the interesting source, and the narrative techniques he develops here prompted an accurate judgment from Juan Marinello who described his recent novels as “casos cumplidos de sabiduría y creación.”

The following description and analysis of the role of the military in the Peruvian political system and its development from independence to the most recent military supplanting of a civilian government in 1968 should serve a twofold purpose: first, to provide information necessary to the understanding of Peruvian political development; and second, to manifest the claims and demands of a politically relevant (institutional) interest group and its manner of satisfying them. During the course of this article, it should become evident to the reader that it would be impossible to offer even the most general history of Peruvian political development without giving considerable attention to the role of both military personalities and the military as an institution.

It is the author's contention that the evolution of the Peruvian military's political role may be divided into nine phases, each with significance for the country's political system.

Estados sociológicos recentes têm procurado salientar que nas economias de modêlo exportador, baseadas no sistema de plantacões tropicais e no trabalho escravo, o grande proprietário rural geralmente se converte em comerciante que vende para os mercados externos os seus próprios produtos. Segundo essa tese, nesse tipo de sociedades não se constituiría urna elite de mercadores individualizada e consciente dos interêsses próprios, distintos dos da aristocracia rural.

Parece-nos que seria interessante analisar comparativamente duas comunidades de mercadores inseridas em sociedades coloniais do tipo “plantation” com o objetivo de verificar a validade dessa tese.

Rio de Janeiro e Charleston, portos de escoamento de produtos tropicais e de entrada e redistribuição de escravos africanos, de importação de produtos manufaturados de origem européia e de trânsito de um próspero comércio de cabotagem de gêneros alimentícios, oferecem urna base para a comparação.

Much of economic planning in Latin America has been oriented toward promoting industrialization. These plans have generally given a major role to government, and no doubt there is a significant role that the public sector can and must play in capital mobilization as well as in performing other functions. In most countries, the infrastructural needs alone are enormous and constitute a major challenge for the still rudimentary machinery of public administration and the generally weak fiscal systems.

Clearly, however, a very large portion of the capital requirements of industrialization has been supplied by the private sector—with important assistance from foreign enterprises, to be sure, but with the domestic private sectors supplying most of the financing needed to maintain what has been, in most countries, a relatively high rate of industrial development. The focus of this paper is on the mechanism by which this capital has been mobilized by the private sector and on the changes that appear to occur in that mechanism during the process of industrialization.

The introductory survey is the single most important course we offer in Latin American history. What we attempt to achieve, how we go about it, and the interest we generate among our students will determine our success or failure in opening to them what Lewis Hanke rightly calls “a significant segment of world history.” Course organization is an intensely personal matter, yet formal and informal discussions at recent conferences have convinced me that an airing of some thoughts on the matter is needed.

A declaration of faith is necessary before proceeding. I do not agree with those who would abolish the introductory survey and substitute a “problems” course or an assortment of country histories. A problems course tends to distort the richness and diversity of the area's historical growth unless the student has some foundations such as those provided by an introductory survey. I do not dismiss a problems course for undergraduates.