In 1972 James Lockhart summarized for LARR the state of social history research on colonial Latin America and proposed far-reaching methodological innovations. The time is ripe for another assessment if only because of the prolific ongoing research. But this very luxuriance hinders an overview of the whole field. Let me therefore focus on Spanish American urban society, with its stratification and elite circulation. Where Lockhart's article led into his message, mine reviews the outcome of his and other research strategies; it also concentrates on English-language publications and excludes theory and methods not directly related to this area.

The rise of authoritarian regimes in Latin America has fueled a long-standing interest in the social bases of democratic and authoritarian political systems. One commonly asserted explanation posits a close relationship between political structure and political culture, holding that authoritarian regimes are likely both to stem from and to perpetuate authoritarian political cultures (Kornhauser 1959; Inkeles 1961; Lip-set 1960, 1981). Some theorists have applied this thesis to Latin American politics, linking, for example, Argentina's frequent experiences with authoritarian governments with the presumed authoritarianism of its citizenry (Fillol 1961; Alexander 1968; Lipset 1960, 1981).

Social insurance entitlements represent one of the more controversial aspects of social sector development in Latin America. The most comprehensive critique of social security views the system's coverage and organization as a reflection of the region's social stratification (Mesa-Lago 1978). According to this view, power groups in public administration, private industry, and labor unions exercise control over the organization and financing of sickness, invalidity, and pension funds, and they seek to restrict benefits to their respective memberships. The noninsured lack market power and political organization because of their low levels of human resources development and lack of social cohesion. Mesa-Lago's critique may be more justified for the lower-income than for the higher-income countries in Latin America, however, at least regarding medical care, which is the system's largest single entitlement program in most Latin American countries.

It has been almost two decades since trends in research on Latin American politics were measured in any systematic way. The early profile of the state of Latin American research in political science developed by Peter Ranis showed that Mexico, Brazil, and Chile “receive about one-third of all political science research attention.” Less than 1 percent of political science research was devoted to Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, and Nicaragua. The subjects that received the most attention in the 1960s were interest groups (the military, students, and the church), the history of political institutions, and the nature of political, economic, and social change.

Over the past two decades, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, the University of Alabama, the University of Texas at Arlington, and the Universidad de Yucatán have produced microfilm copies of primary source materials in the Yucatán. While their films only begin to tap the rich documentary resources of the peninsula, the combined holdings put a large corpus of materials for reconstructing the Yucatecan past within the reach of scholars in the United States. This brief essay will describe the four microfilm collections as they existed in the fall of 1984 as well as the finding aids that have been developed to assist researchers in accessing them.