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Commentaries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2022

Victor Goldkind*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, San Diego State College
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In his inclusive and detailed classification of rural settlement types in Latin America, Marshall Wolfe admirably succeeds in his intention “to describe patterns and relationships that are widely important in the region.” His discussion touches upon important realities of rural social life and its place in the national society which too often are ignored. Despite the modesty of his claims, the author's synthesis of data from many sources provides the basis of a conceptualization which should prove extremely useful as a frame of reference for many practical and scholarly interests. The generalizations he offers about the characteristics of the distinct settlement types, and the nature of their relations to each other and to national institutions, constitute a series of hypotheses worthy of being investigated by research projects designed primarily for that purpose.

Type
Topical Review
Copyright
Copyright © 1966 by the University of Texas Press

References

Notes

1 J. J. Parsons, “The Contribution of Geography to Latin American Studies,” in C. Wagley (ed.), Social Science Research on Latin America, New York, 1964, pp. 53–58.

2 See, for example, M. Jefferson, Recent Colonization in Chile (1921) and The Peopling of the Argentine Pampa (1926); I. Bowman, The Pioneer Fringe (1931); and G. M. McBride, Chile: Land and Society (1936).

3 For a selected bibliography, see Parsons, op. cit., pp. 69–85.

4 Ibid.

5 Compare, for example, the spatial distributions and forms of rural settlements as described in each of the following: P. Monbeig, Pionniers et Planteurs de Sao Paulo, Paris, 1952; R. Nunley, The Distribution of Population in Costa Rica, Washington, 1960; J. P. Augelli, “Rural Settlement Types of Interior Puerto Rico,” Journal of Geography, Vol. 51, 1952; R. Eidt, “Pioneer Settlement in Eastern Peru,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol.49, 1959, pp. 255–78.

6 See, for example, Pan American Union, Plantation Systems of the New World, Washington, D.C., 1959; E. R. Wolf and S. Mintz, “Haciendas and Plantations in Middle America,” Social and Economic Studies, Vol. 6, 1957; J. P. Augelli, “The Rimland-Mainland Concept of Culture Areas in Middle America,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Vol. 52, 1962.

7 K. Stone, “The Development of a Focus for the Geography of Settlement,” Economic Geography, Vol. 41, 1965, p. 348.