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.

A central issue in the analysis of military regimes in Latin America is their policy impact. How successful are military governments in promoting economic development? How do their policies and performances compare with those of civilian governments? The sheer volume of research on the causes of military takeovers in Latin America implies that regime changes have important consequences. Yet to date we are far from having satisfactory answers to the questions posed above. As a recent study of public policy in Latin America noted, “If students of Latin American politics were to inventory verified propositions regarding the performance of Latin American regimes, the resulting list might not exceed zero” (Ames and Goff 1975, p. 175).

The dependency perspective has become a major thrust, both in bourgeois and Marxist conceptions of development and underdevelopment in Latin America, but the distinctions between the two interpretations have been blurred. No unified theory of dependency yet exists, but a variety of theoretical tendencies tends to cluster in the literature on dependency. The discussion that follows differentiates between the bourgeois and Marxist interpretations by focusing on some fundamental weaknesses of dependency theory that emanate among those who utilize a Marxist analysis. In particular, there is concern that dependency theories ignore social classes and class conflict or that these theories tend to present mechanical schemes in which external rather than internal aspects are determinant. Further, it is argued that dependency theories are nationalist in ideology and advocate autonomous capitalist development rather than offering solutions or strategies for the transition from capitalism to socialism.

This section on Historical Statistics is designed as one of the first steps in a process that would make it possible to assemble, for Latin America, a reference work comparable to the Historical Statistics of the United States. This volume assumed that its readers would be composed of those with some knowledge of how statistics were compiled and used. It saw itself as fulfilling two functions, collecting and referring. “The collecting function consists of assembling, selecting, and arranging data from hundreds of sources and making them available within a single source. The referring function consists of text annotations to the data which act as a guide to sources of greater detail. The annotations also define terms used in the tables and include essential qualifying statements.” The volume contains abundant statistics on economic, political, and social aspects of the United States, divided into twenty-six categories of data, and makes it easy to test many hypotheses about American historical development. Similarly, a Historical Statistics of Latin America would provide the statistical basis for the evaluation of many hypotheses about Latin American history, the evaluation of which currently rests upon qualitative evidence.

An increasing amount of research has been undertaken in the last decade on the power structure of the Empire of Brazil (1822–89). In common with similar work on the rest of Latin America, many of the studies on Brazil have adopted the concept of the elite for their theoretical framework. And, as elite studies must do if they are to be more than speculative, several of the works have drawn on prosopography, or collective biography, to support the interpretations of the power structure that they advance. If the results have not, in general, been entirely satisfactory, this is largely due to the limitations in the prosopographical materials used. Since the materials have not easily lent themselves to a proper quantitative approach, they have been used selectively in the form of examples, the validity and relevance of which must always be suspect.

La utilización de fuentes documentales de carácter demográfico es tardía en la historiografía chilena, los historiadores tradicionales utilizaron referencias indirectas y sin evaluación crítica ofreciendo sólo estimaciones globales de la población y de su distribución étnica. En 1934 se publicó una Contribución demográfica para la historia de Valparaíso por Luis Thayer Ojeda estudiándose en ella algunos problemas demográficos locales a la luz de los datos contenidos en los Registros Parroquiales y en los libros del Cementerio General e incluyéndose de paso las series de ambas fuentes hasta 1856. Este primer interés sin embargo no fructificó en una ampliación del uso de técnicas adecuadas a estas nuevas fuentes, excepto ocasionales intentos por dar a conocer otras series documentales como el Censo de la Capitanía General de Chile de 1777 publicado en 1940. A partir de 1950 en cambio se advierte un interés creciente por estudiar la historia de la población chilena con un método mas riguroso y con fuentes mas adecuadas como queda de manifiesto en el capítulo titulado “El desenvolvimiento histórico étnico de la Población de Chile” de la Geografía Económica de Chile y en la introducción con que se publicó el XII Censo General de la Población levantado en 1952. Por otra parte, se edita también una de las fuentes mas valiosas para el estudio de la demografía histórica chilena a fines del siglo XVIII y comienzos del XIX: El Censo de 1813.

Historical research on Chilean population has been thwarted for some time by intractable sources and rudimentary methods. Nevertheless, within the past two decades researchers have begun to achieve some successes. Attention has turned from simply ascertaining gross population totals and growth rates to a much wider range of topics. Significant examples include: the relationship between population growth, illegitimacy, vagrancy, and labor supply; the social context of marriage, family formation, and kin ties; the nature, frequency, and intensity of mortality crises; demographic responses to population pressure; the social and economic repercussions of European immigration; and the determinants and consequences of rapid growth and redistribution of population in the twentieth century (Góngora, 1965; Bauer, 1975; Hurtado, 1966; Solberg, 1969; Young, 1974; Sadie, 1969). To study these topics satisfactorily we must both maintain the healthy skepticism of our distant precursors (e.g., Barros Arana, 1880–1900; Palacios, 1904; and Vergara L., 1900) and integrate the demographer's analytical tools with the historian's skill in finding, selecting, and interpreting a whole range of quantitative and qualitative documents. Demographers have demonstrated that even post-1920 data collected by the Chilean Statistical Bureau have substantial and varying degrees of error, notwithstanding the considerable advances in data collection techniques, improvements in the educational levels of the population, and economic inducements to insure the public's cooperation (Somoza and Tacla, 1969; Gutiérrez, 1969). In the not too distant past, civil administrators and priests received crude, if any, instructions, administered several hundred square kilometers of poorly defined territory, and faced an almost insurmountable task of enticing information from a widely dispersed, highly mobile, poor, and uneducated populus. Consequently, historical studies with exclusively demographic ends, using narrowly defined data bases and relying principally on arithmetical or statistical techniques, may prove to be extremely frustrating to carry out and somewhat barren in their findings. Attempts to replicate European studies with Chilean materials, whether simple aggregations of annual totals or tediously reconstructed family life histories, will run a high risk of failure unless researchers incorporate broader questions of social history, exploit an extensive range of documentation, and integrate historical, demographic, and statistical reasoning. While little mathematical sophistication may be necessary—elementary measures may prove the most powerful—a mature, sensitive understanding of the logic of these disciplines, which comes only with considerable study and experience, is essential. The slavish application of demographic formulae and the invention of ill-considered measures are direct pathways to embarrassing nonsense.

Chile has a long tradition of collecting, publishing, and improving its historical statistics. The objectives here are to provide an introduction to the economic historical statistics of Chile since 1830 and guide the reader to their most significant primary and secondary sources. Mention is also made of attractive historical statistics research projects.

Increasingly, historians of and in the Latin American countries are turning to quantitative data and analysis. TePaske (1972, 1975), Smith (1973), and McGreevey (1972, 1974) comment on work that has been and is being done and on problems inherent in quantification. The problems that students face as quantifiers of the past may be summarized under the rubrics: (1) sources, (2) methodology, (3) training, and (4) financing. It is with the first of these that this article is concerned, especially with sources for quantifying the nineteenth century after independence, a period neglected almost as much as the seventeenth century used to be, at least insofar as the smaller countries are concerned, except for their politics and personages.

The scholar examining nineteenth-century Central American (here defined as including Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica) foreign relations, particularly foreign trade relations, constantly finds quite positive statements regarding British, French, and United States economic power in Central America. These often allege political domination of the individual nations through foreign economic influences. Invariably such claims are based either upon “common knowledge,” without supportive data, or upon data of a highly selective, unsystematic, or arbitrary nature. Confronted with the choice of accepting or challenging these allegations, the scholar may choose the previous “general wisdom,” “create” his own “wisdom,” or institute as systematic a study of foreign economic trade and navigation ties as existing data sources permit. For the scholar wishing to undertake a detailed study, this essay will describe the location, abundance, reliability, and accuracy of data relative to nineteenth-century Central American trade and navigation as encountered in sources from Guatemala, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, the United States, Great Britain, France, Hamburg (until 1873), Bremen, the German Empire (beginning about 1880), Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, and Belgium. While the following discussion focuses upon the use of United States and European archives and the statistical and commercial serials for gathering data on Central American trade and maritime activity, obviously many of these same sources, archives, or serials possess identical data for most other Latin American countries or regions.

Arequipa durante la Colonia se constituyó en uno de los ejes del intercambio de la región sur y alto peruana, la cuál se caracterizó por haber logrado un alto nivel autosustentado de producción agropecuaria. La emergencia de Arequipa se puede relacionar a un número de razones que lindan con la ubicación geográfica y sus características ecológicas, las características demográficas y sociales de su población, los recursos naturales disponibles, el tipo de producción agraria, la capacidad constructora urbana y la habilidad del “chacarero” arequipeño en el manejo del terreno agrícola, la existencia de grupos urbanos dinámicos vinculados a grupos extranjeros y de poder en el país, el tamaño de la ciudad y su desarrollo coherente al de la Campiña aledaña. Evidentemente unas y otras se superponen implícitamente. La ciudad tuvo un papel preponderante en la articulación de una micro-región que incluyó la Campiña, estrechamente interrelacionado a ella, los valles de la costa y otros interandinos para los cuales Arequipa se constituyó en el centro de mercadeo y servicios, de residencia y apoyo, que cubre desde lo financiero y cultural hasta lo relativo a las amenidades de la vida social.

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.

Researchers wishing access to historical statistics of Latin America can obtain assistance from many institutions. One of the most helpful is the Inter-American Statistical Institute (c/o Secretariat, Organization of American States, Washington, D.C. 20006), which recommends the following:

This research inventory was prepared to provide information on current research into quantitative historical studies and to bring up to date and expand the information provided in William G. Tyler's Data Banks and Archives for Social Science Research in Latin America (CLASP Publication No. 6, 1975). Information published in Data Banks is not republished here.

From 1908 until 1973, unknown to most of his countrymen and to Latin Americanists, a Peruvian photographer with an artist's eye compiled a remarkable visual and artistic record of the Peruvian highlands, a record that is just being brought to light. During these years, Martin Chambi, a professional, creative photographer, took more than sixteen thousand photographs, all of which have been retained by his family. Through the efforts of Edward Ranney and the photographer's oldest son, Victor Chambi, this invaluable resource will soon become available for use by authors, artists, and scholars of Latin America. Ranney, a free-lance photographer and a student of archeology, first became aware of Chambi's work during his field trips to Cuzco, Peru, where he spent many months producing his own work, including a forthcoming photographic document on Inca architecture. As he became more familiar with the elder Chambi's work, Ranney soon realized the early artistic eye of this photographer and the superb documentary record he left behind of people, places, and historical events in Cuzco and its surrounding archeological sites and indigenous cultures.

The number of works concerning Mexican history is vast and continues to grow. However, research in the area is complicated by the fact that there are many older works in the field that have been forgotten; they are scattered throughout Mexico, other parts of Latin America, Europe, and the United States. These writings often were published in very small numbers, are now out of print and hard to locate, and thus their existence may escape the scholar's notice. This is unfortunate, for they sometimes contain valuable information.

Un pensamiento social militante, coherente y capaz de organizar y sistematizar teóricamente una concepción totalizadora de la cultura de la sociedad ecuatoriana, aún no emerge en el Ecuador. Nuestro país es uno de los pocos en América Latina que aún no ha visto surgir ese tipo de pensamiento, posibilitado históricamente en otros y que parece estar todavía en un proceso de gestación, a madurar en un futuro impredecible. La trayectoria histórica de nuestra estructura social global y la no insurgencia aún de un poderoso movimiento revolucionario de la clase obrera parecerían explicar este desarrollo acortado. En ausencia de una cultura revolucionaria, en el sentido estricto: que no carezca de una teoría total de si misma, es empero posible y necesario una práctica avanzada dentro de la cultura. La lucha por construír y/o fortalecer las corrientes críticas en las Ciencias Sociales a lo interno de nuestras universidades, es una forma de esta lucha. Y es en esa perspectiva que los esfuerzos realizados en estos dos años desde la Dirección de la Escuela de Sociología, para construir lo que se ha construido y fortalecer lo positivo que existía, se han inscrito. Las prioridades para haber hecho efectiva la inscripción de esta política académica en esa perspectiva han sido contínuas a lo largo de este bienio: posibilitar el desafío y la crítica seria al pensamiento seudo-científico de la sociología burguesa; crear condiciones, espirituales y materiales, para el desarrollo de posturas avanzadas en el pensamiento; desarrollar mecanismos de discusión y difusión de ese pensamiento avanzado para posibilitar su mayor influencia en el terreno de la cultura; y abrir alternativas académicas críticas para nuestro estudiantes de Ciencias Sociales.

Con mucho retraso he leído en mi exilio en Alemania la nota publicada en Latin American Research Review (11, núm. 3 [1976]) titulada “Estudio crítico sobre el libro de Osvaldo Bayer.” No es mi costumbre responder a críticas o comentarios donde se traten mis obras. Creo que no le corresponde al autor salir en defensa de su producción. Salvo el caso en que se tergiversen citas, se escondan datos, se ignoren documentos y se ataque directamente a la persona del escritor lanzando veladas acusaciones de tipo político como ocurre en el artículo publicado en esta revista.