In 1949 the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress published A Guide to the Art of Latin America (gala), an annotated bibliography of the literature on Latin America since the Conquest; it covered the years up to 1942, when the Handbook of Latin American Studies (hlas) had begun its annual bibliographies. “It is a startling fact” the Introduction begins, “that no single work deals comprehensively with the history of art in the Latin American countries.”

In 1968, in an article prepared for the American Historical Association Ad Hoc Committee on Quantitative Data (but not published until 1972), I discussed materials, opportunities, problems, and priorities for quantitative research in Latin American colonial history. Specifically, that article included a discussion of the evolution of quantitative studies on colonial Hispanic America, a description of the data available, possible topics for research, opinions on the future of quantification in the field, and an extensive bibliography. The present article is intended to complement that earlier piece—to discuss new factors giving impetus to quantitative history, to list some of the major contributions since 1968 in Latin American colonial history, to revise some old views, and to offer some new suggestions.

This is a response to the recent critique of my book The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, 1970) by Felix G. Boni and Mitchell A. Seligson. Their factor analysis of my data on poverty suggests, first, that their methodology is more “sensitive” than mine; second, that they have confirmed the thrust of an earlier analysis by Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith; and third, that the task of quantitative history is to reduce data of “unwieldy proportions” so that it is subject to greater understanding.

In recent studies by historians and political scientists there has been increasing attention paid to the question of executive impact on the budgetary process in Latin America. Wilkie's prize-winning research into the broad outlines of budgetary discretion in Revolutionary Mexico has both stimulated controversy and redoubled efforts to employ budgetary data productively in assessing the impact of who governs upon how people are governed.

In the spring of 1973, the author conducted a survey of political scientists teaching Latin American politics at American colleges and universities. The intention was to collect and disseminate information on (1) the techniques used in teaching Latin American politics, (2) the books assigned most frequently to students, (3) the identification of political systems most frequently emphasized in the classroom, and (4) the current level of student interest in the politics of Latin America. In addition to these data, information was gathered on those who teach in the area—i.e., how many have done field research, in which countries do they have the most expertise, and which approaches to political development do they find useful in teaching Latin American politics.

This bibliography is offered as a preliminary guide for students and professionals interested in the texts of the indigenous Nahuatl cultures of Mexico. It is the bibliography I would wish to have were I to begin again my own investigations, which were undertaken with only a general knowledge of Nahuatl culture of the kind available to any curious aficionado of antiquities. While many excellent bibliographies of Nahuatl materials are available (see Note), none have indicated clearly for the uninitiated the primary manuscript sources of the literature or what editions of facsimile, paleography, and translation have been prepared from each. And since much of the critical editing has been piecemeal, locating facsimile or paleography of any specific manuscript may require as many as three different references published over a span of perhaps fifty years. Chasing these references from one book to another in pursuit of sources is time consuming and frustrating for students unfamiliar with the literature, especially for those North Americans whose only chance to work in Mexico is through an inadequate travel grant giving them precious little time. This bibliography offers a convenient organization of references which will facilitate location of any source in whatever form the investigator may desire.

Although the study of international relations is among the oldest fields of Latin American history, historians have not fully exploited the diplomatic archives of that region. No doubt the main obstacle has been the restrictive policies of the Latin American chancelleries, which have tended to view all diplomatic correspondence as inherently sensitive, particularly since boundary disputes have survived in many cases until the present moment. For this and other reasons, the study of Latin American foreign relations has lagged far behind that of Europe and the United States. Among Latin Americans, ex-ambassadors seem more prolific than professional historians in the field of diplomatic history; their works vary tremendously in quality, from the valuable studies of Cardozo (1961) and Herrera (1908-1927, 1930) to a host of mediocre treatments. European and North American historians have tended to focus on diplomatic contacts with the Great Powers, whose archives are more easily accessible, and to see Latin American foreign relations from the vantage point of the Great Powers. Such products include the classic works of Manchester (1933) and Robertson (1939) and the more recent studies of Burns (1966) and Wood (1966). Some works dealing with inter-American relations—e.g., Tulchin (1971) and Wood (1961, 1966)—define their topics so as to use no Latin American archival materials at all; others, such as Parks (1935) define their topics more broadly but still use United States or British archives exclusively.

The Mexican collection of the International Institute of Social History is substantially smaller than that of Argentina or Brazil. Of this, the collection of periodicals constitutes the principal part. This latter collection (Sections A and B) covers the period ±1880-1940. Although many items represent only a single or limited number of issues of a given publication, the total amount of information is considerable. The pre-revolution period is represented by only a restricted number of literary and positivist magazines, besides a few copies of workers' magazines from Mexico City, Orizaba, and Monterrey. The more important part of the collection, however, is formed by the periodicals of local chapters of the Casa del Obrero Mundial from the years 1912-18, such as Ariete, Redención Obrera, Revolución Social, El Sindicalista, and Tribuna Roja. In addition, there is some material relating to the I.W. W., the C.R.O.M., and the later C.T.M.

Preservation of written testimony is essential to the writing of history. Yet, in Latin America, historical documents, though copiously produced, have been sadly neglected and too often destroyed. What remains, then, assumes inestimable value for all historians—humanists or social scientists—for only on its basis can this hemisphere's past be reconstructed. A knowledge of the exact location and condition of material is necessary for the formulation of a reasonable historical research project; it is obviously essential to the research itself.

One of the most pervasive phenomena in the modern political world is authoritarianism—regimes characterized by “limited pluralism,” identifiably and analytically distinct from democratic or totalitarian types of rule. Well over a third of the contemporary nation-states, mostly in the developing regions, fall into the authoritarian category—and this fact alone would seem to call for intensive research. Nevertheless, despite the obvious importance of the problem, we know relatively little about the origins, dynamics, and stability (or instability) of such regimes. There is a particularly urgent need for empirical research to test, refine, and amplify hypotheses that now exist.