In Recent Years Andean Ethnohistory Has Benefitted From Four new developments:

First, is the greater accessibility of the classical chronicles, particularly since the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles in Madrid decided in 1956 to reprint Bernabé Cobo's Historia del Nuevo Mundo which had gone out of print decades before. The BAE has since reprinted at reasonable prices many other titles, among them the indispensable Relaciones geográficas de Indias. Anyone who had tried to study pre-European Andean institutions in the libraries at Cuzco, Cuenca or Sucre even ten years ago knows how difficult it was then to check any claim or hypothesis at the source. Students were forced to use third-hand and incomplete references; many others in the Andes were discouraged from pursuing such studies because of the unavailability of the eyewitness or other early accounts.

University Students Have Been a Highly Visible Participant in Latin American politics for many years. To cite a few examples, they played an important role in the overthrow of the regimes in Cuba (1933, 1959), Guatemala (1944), Venezuela (1958), and Bolivia (1964), and have led significant anti-government demonstrations in nearly every Latin American country at one time or another. No government in the region can afford to disregard students as a political group.

The Publication in 1960 of I. R. Lavretskii's “A Survey of the Hispanic American Historical Review, 1956-1958,” provided U.S. specialists in Latin American history with an abrasive introduction to recent Soviet historical scholarship in the Latin American area. Subsequent reviews by American and European scholars, together with further translations of pertinent Soviet writings, have helped to provide those lacking a knowledge of the Russian language with additional insight into the nature and scope of Latin American studies in the USSR. At the same time, however, the frequently opposing views of history held by Soviet historians and their western critics have greatly complicated the task of scholarly evaluation. On the one hand, Soviet historical scholarship has often been dismissed as “a branch of politics;” on the other, U.S. historians are said to “falsify and distort the historical truth in order to benefit imperialism.” In content and presentation, the Lavretskii article evinces both extremes.

Inasmuch as Scientific Criticism and Polemic are of the Greatest significance for the development of every branch of historical science, including, of course, the study of Latin America, I should like to offer a few thoughts on this subject.

Soviet historians of Latin America, just as scholars in other fields, attach great significance to the views of specialists everywhere-be they their colleagues in the USSR or abroad; be they Marxists or non-Marxists. Even if we hold different philosophical and methodological positions than our opponents, we are always ready to lend an attentive ear to critical observations. Disagreement with the world view or general historical conception of one or another of our foreign critics by no means prevents us from recognizing the correctness of his views on given problems, provided that the viewpoint in question is convincingly argued and scientificallydemonstrated. Even though we reject any questioning of the basic conceptions advanced by us, we are still able to accept admonitions and to seek a kernel of reason in otherwise totally inadmissible criticisms.

James Wilkie's The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910 is an industrious attempt to get beneath the conventional wisdom about the changes wrought by the Mexican Revolution. The author's careful compilation of budgetary data should sharply challenge the longstanding and widespread assumptions that: (a) useful historical material from Latin America does not exist in statistical form, and (b) even if it did exist, the mystical qualities of Latin culture defy all efforts at measurement. Wilkie has shown that—with luck, perseverence, and imagination—data can be found. One hopes that his example will encourage other students of the area to seek out similar data and reap further intellectual benefits from quantitative analysis: hypothesis-testing, measurement of trends, and rigorous comparison.

In Raising Questions Concerning Methodology in My Book, The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910, Professors Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith have offered a reminder that statistics “do not speak for themselves.” The authors of “Notes on Quantitative History” are to be commended for undertaking a lengthy article examining some long-standing problems which historians face in attempting to understand the Latin American past.