Dependencia theory is in vogue among social scientists throughout the world. Having originated in Latin America in the early 1960s, it was widely embraced both there and in parts of Europe and Africa by the end of the decade. In the 1970s, North Americans joined the flood of scholars attempting to grapple with the problems of underdevelopment in the so-called Third World from a perspective explicitly rejecting traditional theories of development. With this new stream of researchers came new tools and new approaches to the study of peripheral societies, tools and approaches intended to complement those previously used within the dependencia tradition.

Despite calls to improve and systematize research on political participation in Latin America more than a decade ago (Kling 1964, Flores Olea 1967), the burgeoning literature on the subject has yet to achieve full recognition. Thus certain contradictory and incomplete traditional images still linger in the scholarly literature (Booth and Seligson 1978a). These treatments vary dramatically and almost bewilderingly: while one suggests that Latin Americans are becoming increasingly politically mobilized, two others hold that mass participation is very low and that most political activity is restricted to socioeconomic elites. Other images portray mass political participation as irrational and dwell upon political violence. Such familiar notions have often intertwined. For example, a common picture depicts most Latin Americans, and especially peasants, as politically passive and quiescent until provoked, when they may burst violently into the political arena (for example, see Forman 1971, Singelmann 1975, Handelman 1975b, Moreno 1970). Similarly Wiarda (1974, pp. 4–5) discusses how the image of mobilization often combines with that of violence, producing the notion that the rising political awareness and participation of Latin Americans leads inexorably to ever greater levels of conflict (e.g., Schmitt and Burks 1963, Hadley 1958, Petras and Zeitlin 1968, Petras 1968).

Currently, Western Europe is experiencing a novel type of Marxism. The Communist movement is no longer viewed by most observers as a cohesive monolith waiting for directions from the East, and communism in Italy, France, and Spain has shown an increasing level of autonomy and national resourcefulness. Indeed, the “Eurocommunism” of Santiago Carrillo (head of the Spanish Communist party) is frequently attacked by his Soviet comrades in Party Congress and press alike. In that this new European communism pays a great deal of attention to specific national conditions, the importance of autonomy, and flexible strategies to win support, it is not always understood by orthodox Communists or ardent anti-Marxists. The latter group is convinced that all Communists are the same and will show their true color once in power, while the former is greatly concerned that their once revolutionary parties will evolve into revisionist Social Democratic groupings far afield from Lenin's prototypical Bolshevik party. Neither, then, is happy with this innovative approach to Western European Marxist-Leninist praxis.

Spoken on the high Andean plains of Peru and Bolivia from Lake Titicaca to the salt flats south of Lake Poopó, and in northern Chile, Aymara is the most widespread member of the Jaqi language family whose sole other remnants, spoken in Yauyos, department of Lima, Peru, are the nearly extinct Kawki and the still vigorous Jaqaru. Aymara is estimated to have over a million and a half speakers in Bolivia, roughly 350,000 in Peru, and an unspecified number in Chile, bringing the total to nearly two million.

In analyzing the historical development of Meso- and Andean-American society, historians have stressed the hacienda's destructive impact on native settlements, which, once broken down, became disposed to the adoption of Spanish traits. This view focuses primarily on the hacendado's acquisition of Indian land and labor and the resultant destruction, partial or complete, of traditional Indian forms of cultivation, trade, and ultimately social relationships. To the extent that the hacendado forced communal Indians to resettle in newly opened lands, cultivate European crops, and engage in European trade, he encouraged the Indians to abandon their traditional rituals and adopt readily available Spanish patterns as replacements.

Until recently, the Córdoba Reform of 1918 was the symbolic landmark in twentieth-century Latin American higher education. Achieving a pioneering victory in Argentina, the Reform soon became influential throughout much of the region, and university autonomy from government emerged as its most cherished legacy. Despite frequent violations, the principle of autonomy often promoted a substantial degree of university self-rule and even sanctuary for free expression. In 1968—fifty years after the Reform's genesis—the Mexican government's brutal repression of university students seemed to symbolize a secular change. Many observers feel that events of the last decade have reduced autonomy to little more than a cherished memory. Autonomy has indeed suffered a tragic fate in Cuba, Brazil, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, and Chile, among the more important nations. But what about Mexico? This article argues that the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) remains substantially autonomous. This is, admittedly, a relative statement; no public university is completely independent of government control. However, UNAM seems to enjoy considerable self-rule and is notably autonomous in cross-national perspective.

No one with even a passing acquaintance with the literature on Mexican society, not to mention the rest of Spanish America, can fail to be impressed by the frequent use of the term mestizo. Despite its ubiquity in the writings of social scientists, however, the concept of the mestizo is customarily employed in a vague fashion and usually left undefined. This is especially evident in the work of anthropologists, who for many years have been preoccupied with defining the Mexican Indian but have rarely focused their analytical powers on the mestizo. The term itself has been used rather loosely to refer to a certain group of people who presumably comprise a majority of the Mexican population, a cultural pattern shared by these people and other Latin Americans, and even a personality type.

The North Central Council of Latin Americanists grew out of the Wisconsin Council of Latin Americanists which was formed during the 1966–67 year by scholars from various colleges and universities in Wisconsin. A group of nine met originally on 25 March 1966 at Stevens Point, Wisconsin to determine whether there was enough interest on their campuses to warrant drafting plans for a statewide association. This group, plus other Latin Americanists from the state, met again at Wisconsin State University—Whitewater on 16 December 1966. They formed an executive committee and charged it with drafting a charter for the new organization; they also set the first general meeting for Spring 1967 at Wisconsin State University—Platteville.

Although the history of Latin American studies in New England is long and luminous, from Prescott to Haring, Morison, and numerous more recent lights, the nucleus for the organization of the New England Council was not formed until 1969. The organization of NECLAS was related both to the mushrooming growth of Latin American studies at New England colleges and universities and nationwide during the 1960s, and to the emergence of the larger private and state universities in the region as relatively new and major centers of research and teaching on Latin American affairs.

In Brazil, as in Spanish America, poor public libraries and rich private libraries are mutually reinforcing phenomena. The researcher who must rely on public institutions usually spends much of his or her available time scurrying from one library to another in (often fruitless) search of materials. To the extent that one needs theoretical works and foreign publications, rather than works about, and published in, Brazil, the chore becomes more onerous.

Desde al año 1971 estamos organizando lo que actualmente se llama el Archivo del Fuero Agrario. Esta institución fue conocida antes con el nombre de Centro de Documentación Agraria y ahora, de manera resumida, se le dice simplemente Archivo Agrario. Desde el año mencionado un grupo de investigadores científicos sociales e historiadores percibieron que con el proceso de Reforma Agraria (Decreto Ley 17716) en las haciendas que iban siendo expropiadas quedaban un conjunto de documentos que debían ser centralizados en un local. Fue de esta manera como se empezó a reunir los documentos de empresas agrícolas o ganaderas. De esto han pasado ya seis años y se puede decir que ya hay un importante archivo que facilita la comprensión del mundo rural peruano desde el interior de las unidades de producción. Esto es algo así como penetrar dentro de un organismo y comprender, desde su interior, el funcionamiento de sus distintos sistemas. El Archivo Agrario es un caso único en América Latina y en el mundo. Hay casos particulares de documentos muy similar a los que tenemos en el archivo que han sido utilizados por investigadores sociales, pero en ninguna parte hay concentrado el volumen del material documental del tipo al que nos estamos refiriendo. Esto es lo que tenemos ya construido. Y no solamente se trata de un repositorio de documentos sino que se trata de algo más que ello. Se está creando un centro donde colaboramos en orientar las investigaciones históricas agrarias y donde los que trabajamos ahí hacemos historia del mundo rural. Estamos creando una institución donde también hay organizados mapoteca, hemeroteca, fototeca, todo ello del ambiente rural peruano.

Without exception, all studies of Caribbean industrial relations and the attendant conflicts have either been descriptive historical accounts of the emergence of labor movements and trade union parties or institutional analyses of the systems of collective bargaining developed in the postwar period. While these studies have been important in documenting industrial relations practices and the political dimension of Caribbean trade unionism, they lack both a rigorous comparative frame as well as a commitment to the measuring and testing of explanatory propositions. As a result, relevant behavioral data in this field remain crude, unanalyzed, and largely uncollected. Although the traditional emphases on historical, political, and institutional perspectives are desirable and important, particularly in view of the major social and political changes that both shaped and were influenced by the labor movement in the region, other perspectives are now necessary in coming to grips with the difficult task of comprehending and explaining patterns and variations in the relations between labor and capital in the Caribbean. These perspectives can only evolve through self-conscious attempts at both theory building and comparative analysis of quantitative data. This study represents a modest step in this direction that poses rather than answers some basic conceptual and theoretical questions, in view of the limits of the available data.