The purpose of this paper is to review the evolution of public policy toward the favelas of Rio de Janeiro since 1972–73. I choose these years because they are the ones at which available published accounts on the topic cease. One of my objectives is to re-actualize existing information on that subject. At the same time, I wish to bring forth some considerations on the relationships between civil society, especially its most deprived classes, and the particular form of authoritarian state now dominant in Brazil.

During the last few years, interest in overall economic growth as the best measure and object of development has increasingly given way to a preoccupation with the distribution of income and thus with how the benefits of economic growth are shared. Within this general concern is a specific preoccupation with the poorest families in less-developed countries, who may remain in dire poverty despite significant increases in income per head or other measures of development.

The past eleven years have been extremely fruitful for Chilean specialists. Various scholars have formulated theories to explain Chile's political, social, and economic development; new monographs as well as doctoral dissertations have provided grist for the generalist's mill; and studies on mining—particularly the nitrate sector—agriculture, the role of labor, and more detailed political surveys have been published. Increasingly, one notes a tendency to undertake projects that will investigate twentieth-century topics. This essay reviews some of the recent contributions to Chile's already rich historiography and attempts to include material from other disciplines as well as history. It will not, however, discuss the Allende period, whose massive and still growing literature requires separate treatment. Those interested in this topic might profitably consult the recent work of Arturo and Samuel Valenzuela, “Visions of Chile” (LARR 10, no. 3 [1975]:155–75).

Geopolitics as an approach to politico-military matters was of considerable significance up to the end of World War II, when it declined in respectability and prestige due to its association with Nazi theories of world conquest. As a result, very few strategic or military writings in the United States or Western Europe since World War II have been called “geopolitical,” even though they might include many of the concepts subsumed under the pre-1945 term. But, interestingly enough, the concept is alive and well in Latin America, especially in those Southern Cone countries (Brazil, Argentina, and Chile) where the most prolific thinking and writing on geopolitics has taken place in the last thirty years.

The first part of this essay reviews some of the strengths and weaknesses in the current state of social history of Latin American cities. Specifically, it tries to create an awareness that quantitative urban studies need not be, and should not be, limited to aggregate data for sources. Unfortunately, many of the nascent quantitative studies of postindependence Latin American cities achieve their figures through published materials, principally demographic and commercial censuses. However, manuscript census returns, notarial records, judicial assessments, and other primary documentation can also provide the base from which we can observe frequencies both of personal vital records and of popular quotidian behavior; moving, marrying, going to school, buying or selling goods or property, and so on.

The study of Latin American labor history is at a crossroads. It is now an established field, with a growing body of scholars and research and opportunities for major advances. At the same time, it is in danger of isolating itself from promising intellectual and methodological currents and confining itself to institutional chronologies and ideological controversies. To avert this danger and take advantage of these opportunities, Latin American labor history must both become more fully the history of labor and transcend the limitations of that definition.

Social scientists generally present the conclusions of their studies without describing how their ideas may have changed in the course of doing research. They also rarely discuss the impact they have on the persons they study or the ethical problems of research. I will address both of these issues, focusing on my experiences doing research on Mexican urban poor. In addition, I will describe how and why my conceptual framework changed during the study and raise some general questions about the relationship between theory and methods and the types of moral dilemmas faced by researchers, who often are neither value-free nor politically neutral.

A realização deste trabalho correspondeu à necessidade de reunir informações básicas e fundamentais sobre os arquivos privados no Rio de Janeiro. Seu objetivo consiste em elaborar um mapeamento de fontes documentais referentes ao Período Repúblicano da História do Brasil visando focalizar principalmente a etapa contemporânea iniciada com a Revolução de 1930. Este levantamento pretende basicamente fornecer pistas ao pesquisador para a localização de fontes primárias no Rio de Janeiro. A inexistência de critérios rígidos de organização, em muitas instituições, dificultou uma sistematização perfeita dos dados relevantes para descrição dos acervos. Por isso, optou-se por apresentar as informações possíveis, refletindo assim as condições oferecidas ao pesquisador para a consulta de documentos.

The Library of Congress began to gather contemporary Latin American, Caribbean, and Iberian literature recorded on magnetic tape, when the Uruguayan poet Emilio Oribe passed through Washington in 1942. He recorded a then recently written poem entitled “Oda al cielo de la nueva Atlántida” dedicated to Archibald MacLeish, the poet who was Librarian of Congress from 1939 to 1944. A year later Andrés Eloy Blanco of Venezuela recorded “Píntame angelitos negros” and six other compositions. Around 1944 the Library set out to formulate a program to record North American poets reading selections from their own works. The Library's Hispanic Foundation (now called the Hispanic Division) decided to assemble a similar Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, heeding the words of Gabriela Mistral, the first Latin American to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature: “Poetry hushed and inert in books fades away and dies. The air not the printed word is its natural home. Recordings serve it well.”

Un lector asiduo de ciertos géneros de la literatura sobre el reciente desarrollo económico y social de Latinoamérica podría rematar en la conclusión de que “aquí no ha pasado nada,” Su aserto descansaría en el examen de algunos problemas y expresiones centrales de la temática regional de los últimos lustros. Ejemplo ilustrativo: la infatigable presencia de restricciones externas e internas que militan en conjunto contra el desarrollo: segmentos de ellas mudaron tal vez énfasis e importancia, pero el escenario, los personajes y el guión permanecen en general sin alteración. Continúan, en otras palabras, las oscilaciones caprichosas del comercio exterior, la fragilidad financiera, la debilidad-ingreso del mercado interior, el subempleo y la pobreza crítica, las rigideces institucionales.

Se procurará deslindar algunas significaciones que cobija la debatida noción de filosofía latinoamericana; sin ánimo de suponer por ello que se esté frente a un asunto que, al estilo neopositivista, pueda disolverse bajo el mero análisis lingüístico. Por el contrario, se trata de un problema que elude las divisorias tajantes, tal como la naturaleza que avanza y se entremezcla más allá de las marcaciones cartográficas. Al mismo tiempo, se ilustrarán los aspectos acotados, aunque posponiendo el examen de sus tan desiguales grados de importancia reflexiva y pragmática.

This note examines the level and structure of construction costs in Latin America in the late sixties, comparing them with those obtained in the early sixties by the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). The cost trends over this period are then examined.

During a research trip to Ecuador in the summer of 1978, the editor had occasion to visit several centers for training and investigation in the social sciences. The evidence of marked progress over earlier years is unmistakeable, and has been stimulated by both national and international bases of support as well as the influx of intellectuals exiled from other Latin American countries. In a previous issue (volume 13, number 2 [1978]), LARR presented a report from former director Rafael Quintero on the activities and pedagogical orientation of the Escuela de Sociología at the Universidad Central del Ecuador. He also noted the important appearance of the Revista de Ciencias Sociales, four numbers of which had been published by mid-1978, as well as the initiation of national conferences on sociology: the first of these was convened in Quito in November 1976 and the second met at Cuenca in April 1978. While research activities are being undertaken in both Guayaquil and Cuenca, much of the effort nationally is centered in Quito. In keeping with LARR'S effort to improve and extend communication in this area, the following reports on four centers are presented. In conjunction with the earlier contribution by Dr. Quintero, they provide a useful, if less than fully exhaustive, perspective on social science activities in Quito.

Una de las causas de fondo de las situaciones de extrema pobreza es la falta de empleos que permitan obtener ingresos adecuados a las necesidades mínimas. ¿Cómo pueden formularse políticas de empleo que permitan abrir oportunidades efectivas y duraderas para los grupos más pobres y que al mismo tiempo signifiquen una contribución al desarrollo nacional? En este documento se elabora un enfoque para la formulación de políticas de empleo en economías heterogéneas, es decir, economías en las que prevalecen serias rigideces estructurales, como falta de movilidad de los recursos, escasa difusión de las tecnologías, desigual distribución del ingreso y de la riqueza.

A diferencia de los enfoques ortodoxos, que suponen que a través de políticas económicas globales y uniformes se pueden corregir esas rigideces, en este estudio se recomienda una identificación de los grandes grupos y sectores sociales, de acuerdo a la forma en que se insertan en el sistema económico y a sus vinculaciones con los sectores más modernos. Las políticas tendientes a aumentar el empleo deben, en consecuencia, ser selectivas de acuerdo a las características de esos grupos. Con todo, deben estar integradas a una estrategia coherente de desarrollo a largo plazo que persiga el crecimiento con disminución de la desigualdad.