bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
North—South: Trade Policy, Regionalism andCaudillismoin Post-Independence Peru
Authors: Gootenberg Paul
Published: February 2009

The thesis of this article, following that venerable geopolitical theory of Montesquieu, is deceptively simple. In post-independence Peru, the fundamental faultline of regional conflict was a north–south one, that of thelimeñonorth versus thearequipeñosouthern coast. The sources of north–south differentiation were many: distinctive institutional legacies of colonialism, the centrifugal force of 1820s balkanisation, contrasting new forms of overseas penetration, the dichotomous pull of Pacific and Atlantic basin economies, overarching patterns of regional rise and decline, and rival visions for integrating the new country of Peru. By the 1830s, however, the north–south conflict had crystallised and polarised around one central issue: commercial policy or, to put it at its simplest, the north's ‘protectionism’ versus the south's ‘free trade’.
Pancho Villa and the Multinationals: United States Mining Interests inVillistaMexico, 1913–1915
Authors: Meyers William K.
Published: February 2009

Pancho Villa is an intriguing figure of the Mexican Revolution. His popular movement dominated northern Mexico from 1913 to 1915, greatly influencing the revolution's course and the character of modern Mexican politics. As a revolutionary, Villa remains immortalised as a bold and charismatic military leader who rose from poverty to attack the wealthy and powerful while championing peasants' and workers' rights. He also stands as a prominent symbol of national pride, a leader who fought against foreign domination and dared to attack the United States directly. But how ‘revolutionary’ were Villa and theVillistamovement? What did they actually accomplish? If Francisco Madero stands for political rights and democracy, Emiliano Zapata for land reform, and Venustiano Carranza for nationalism and the 1917 Constitution, whatdoes Villa represent?
Foreign Capital, Economic Elites and the State in Paraguay during the Liberal Republic (1870–1936)
Authors: Abente Diego
Published: February 2009

The Paraguayan liberal republic, spanning from the end of the War of the Triple Alliance until the end of the Chaco War, is one of the most under-researched and probably one of the most undervalued periods of Paraguayan history and has only recently elicited some scholarly interest.1During this period capital accumulation developed exclusively in the private domain, economic policies were informed bylaissez–fairedoctrines, and the political arena embodied, if mostly theoretically, the liberal principles of public contestation and elite competition. Those basic and distinctive traits, and in that particular combination, are found in no other period of Paraguayan history. It therefore makes conceptual sense to speak of the liberal republic as a distinct period in Paraguayan history.
Land Reform, Female Migration and the Market for Domestic Service in Chile
Authors: Hojman David E.
Published: February 2009

In recent years there has been significant improvement in terms of the quantity and quality of empirical studies on Latin American urban labour markets.1The relative degree of ignorance concerning the market for domestic service is therefore particularly notorious. Some important gaps in the current state of our knowledge are the determinants of long-term trends and of short and medium-term fluctuations in this market, the relationship between domestic service and female rural–urban migration, and that between domestic service and the aggregate labour market.
Juan José Arévalo and the Caribbean Legion
Authors: Gleijeses Piero
Published: February 2009

On 15 March 1945 Juan José Arévalo became president of Guatemala. His inauguration marked the beginning of an unprecedented democratic parenthesis – ‘spring in the land of eternal tyranny ’1– a spring that ended abruptly with the overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in 1954.

Arévalo was an anti-communist, a nationalist, and a reformer. He was an anti-communist who believed that individual communists should not be persecuted unless they violated the law. He was a nationalist who accepted that Guatemala was in the US sphere of influence. He was a reformer who eschewed radical change.
The Reform of the Cuban Economy, 1976–86: Organisation, Incentives and Patterns of Behaviour
Authors: Fitzgerald Frank T.
Published: February 2009

‘As far as salaries go, there is chaos all over the country’, Fidel Castro exclaimed in 1986,1 and as he and other revolutionary leaders made clear throughout that year more than salaries was involved. Prices, credit, employment practices, administrative procedures and many other important aspects of the economy could be characterised as ‘chaotic’. It would be wrong, however, to take such characterisations at face value. For underlying this ‘chaos’ was a certain order: patterns of behaviour that this article will seek to disclose and explain.
Agricultural Credit in the Province of Buenos Aires, Argentina, 1890–1914
Authors: Adelman Jeremy
Published: February 2009

In 1879, for the first time, Argentina exported more wheat than it imported. A generation later the Republic figured among the top five exporters of wheat in the world and wheat had become its premier earner of foreign exchange. The expansion was by any account remarkable.1

With the expulsion of the Indians from thePampa Húmedain the late 1870s, hundreds of thousands of hectares of arable and highly fertile land were suddenly made available to agriculturalists. Railways, built largely with British capital, provided the means to ship new agricultural produce out of the region to the newly constructed ports. Immigrants flocked from Europe to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the vacant land, either as new property owners, as tenants or as wage-earners. The surge in the supply of land, labour and capital initiated a period of growth in Argentina, a growth which was shared by other regions of recent settlement which responded to similar opportunities.2
Alternative Action in Costa Rica: Peasants as Positive Participants
Authors: Anderson Leslie
Published: February 2009

As the developing world modernises and traditionally excluded groups seek to take part in their societies, the political activity of the peasantry assumes an ever-increasing importance. Yet most scholarship has focused on the more spectacular forms of political action such as rebellion. In recent years some scholars have turned their attention to the other extreme of everyday resistance,1but such contributions are still limited in number. This paper utilises an inclusive view of peasant politics and takes the position that all kinds of peasant political action are different parts of one whole, such that a similarity of motivation lies behind them all. It concentrates upon a category of political action that falls between rebellion and everyday resistance: organised, non-violent peasant protest. It studies these alternative forms of political action within a political system which is relatively open to such tactics. The story which emerges reveals that by resorting to non-violent protest, peasants can make a positive contribution to their societies and improve their own welfare. In developing this argument the paper links the study of non-violent protest to existing theories and research on peasant violence and everyday resistance. In doing so it argues that the explanations for riot and rebellion given in the moral economy theory, and which underlie acts of everyday resistance, also help to account for collective, non-violent peasant political activity.
The Origins of Dependency Analysis
Authors: Love Joseph L.
Published: February 2009

It is widely recognised that dependency analysis developed out of two traditions of economic thought, Marxism and Latin American structuralism, associated with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA). Although structuralism is acknowledged as a progenitor, Marxism is usually viewed, implicitly or explicitly, as the primary tradition from which dependency arose. This is perhaps because dependency per se is so widely perceived as having begun with two books for which Marxist antecedents were claimed.Dependencia y desarrollo en América Latina(1969), by Fernando Henrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, andCapitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America(1967), by Andre Gunder Frank, ‘stood out as the leading theoretical and systematic efforts to construct a dependency perspective for Latin America’, and remain ‘the landmarks to which assessment of dependency perspectives inevitably return’.1
Debt, Taxes, and War: The Political Economy of Bolivia,c. 1920–1935
Authors: Contreras Manuel E.
Published: February 2009

During the first thirty years of this century the Bolivian economy provided a classic example of export-led growth. Mining, with tin at the forefront, responded to the stimulus of both world demand and price, and was the leading sector of the economy. Tin exports increased five-fold from 1900 to 1929, and Bolivia's share of world production more than doubled, accounting for approximately a quarter of total world production from 1918 to 1929.
The Urbanisation of a Secondary City: The Case of Rosario, Argentina, 1870–1920
Authors: Johns Michael
Published: February 2009

In 1845, Argentine statesman Domingo Sarmiento predicted that ‘what took 20 years to occur in North America, i.e. the emergence almost by magic of numerous cities, provinces and states in what was once uninhabited terrain, will occur in Argentina in the same span of time’. Forty years later, however, French writer Emile Daireaux observed that ‘the commercial development of Buenos Aires is that of a satellite which orbits Europe's sphere of attraction; Argentina's other cities and towns are in turn satellites of Buenos Aires’. A half-century later still, Ezequiel Martínez Estrada could complain that ‘the country's progress will come only when…we care for the health of the entire body and not only the euphoria of its decapitated head’. The imagery of Daireaux and Martínez Estrada portrays Buenos Aires' comprehensive domination of the Argentine city system, a city system quite unlike the replica of the US model envisaged by an optimistic Sarmiento.
Planters and Politics in Peru, 1895–1919
Authors: Gonzales Michael J.
Published: February 2009

Elite family networks with overlapping economic and political power have been a basic feature of Latin America. Their influence was characteristically strong during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries as the export economies expanded and national governments, particularly in the larger nations, advocated order and progress at the expense of participatory democracy. Historically, the influence of the elites has been primarily a regional phenomenon underpinned by ownership of land, mines, or lucrative commercial enterprises. They formed economic, political, and blood alliances to control production of vital products, monopolise local government and, on occasion, initiate bold entrepreneurial initiatives. Examples include the thirty families who dominated henequen production and local government in nineteenth-century Yucatán, the Grupo Monterrey who ran the industrialising economy of northeastern Mexico during thePorfiriato, and the Paraíba oligarchy who controlled cotton production, municipal government, and local tax revenues during the Brazilian Old Republic (1889–1930).
Ecology and the Poor: A Neglected Dimension of Latin American History
Authors: Martinez-Alier Joan
Published: February 2009

This Commentary addresses the issue of ecological perception and ecological politics among poor populations, rural and urban. Some social struggles by poor people (and some national struggles by poor countries) can be understood also as ecological struggles. This approach reveals the ecological content, both hidden and explicit, of social movements from the past or present, which have been geared to defend access to natural resources against the advance of the generalised market system, and that have contributed to the conservation of resources to the extent that the market undervalues externalities. Examples are taken mainly from the history of highland and coastal Peru, but this approach is relevant also for the Amazonian region. Some comparisons are made with other countries in Latin America and also with India.
Failed Democratic Reform in Contemporary Mexico: from Social Movements to the State and Back Again
Authors: Davis Diane E.
Published: February 2009

Over the last decade or so, North American and European scholars have popularised a research focus on new social movements, or so-called autonomous and democratic struggles generated from within civil society against the state. The underlying theoretical premise of this approach is that challenges to the state from social movements are a principal driving force of political change in modern society. Despite its grounding in the advanced capitalist context, many Latin American scholars have found elective affinity with the argument, as evidenced in the recent tidal wave of studies on social movements by Latin Americanists. Basing their work primarily on analyses of Brazil, Argentina and Chile, scholars have argued that social movements help challenge the legitimacy and political power of strong and centralised governments in Latin America, at the same time creating from the grassroots a political culture suggestive of democratic transformation. In sort, there is growing consensus that social movements play a central role in bringing democracy to Latin America.
In with the New, Out with the Old? The Democratising Impact of Constitutional Reform in Chile
Authors: Ensalaco Mark
Published: February 2009

On 30 July 1989 Chileans cast ballots in an historic but unheralded plebiscite, and approved a massive revision of the Constitution that in 1980 the Pinochet regime had crafted to institutionalise its rule. Some observers had doubted that it would be possible to change Pinochet's prized ‘Constitution of Liberty’, while others have since questioned the significance of the reforms that were achieved. In fact, as a result of the July referendum, 54 modifications involving 12 of the document's 14 chapters were enacted before the Constitution even went fully into effect. Moreover, since the reestablishment of democracy in Chile, the coalition government of Patricio Aylwin has won passage of still other constitutional reforms involving administrative decentralisation, and has introduced draft legislation designed to bring about changes in the judicial and electoral systems. His successor, Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei, is also committed to reform.
Central American Men and Women in the Urban Informal Sector
Authors: Sáinz J. P. Pérez , Larín R. Menjívar
Published: February 2009

One of the research issues which FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales) has been most interested in is that of the heterogeneity found in the informal world. In a previous study we tried to clarify its presence in the metropolitan cities of Central America and we concluded that, although dynamic economic units orientated towards a logic of accumulation existed, activities orientated towards a logic of subsistence predominated. Thus, a central feature of informality became clear: its inner heterogeneity. This characteristic was previously deemphasised by an improper identification of informality with microenterprise.
Political Structure and Social Banditry in Northeast Brazil
Authors: Singelmann Peter
Published: February 2009

In his pioneering works on Primitive Rebels and Bandits, Eric Hobsbawm analyzed certain forms of rural banditry as primitive social protest. Such ‘social banditry’ was distinguished from ordinary banditry primarily by virtue of its continued incorporation into the traditional peasant society, its attacks against landlords and other authorities and its ‘affinity for revolution, being a phenomenon of social protest, if not a precursor or potential incubator of revolt’. Social banditry was analyzed by Hobsbawm as a reaction of peasants to alien authorities, injustices and major social up-heavals such as war, conquest, or industrialization.
The Debate on Sunday Markets in Nineteenth–Century Ecuador
Authors: Bromley Rosemary D. F. , Bromley R. J.
Published: February 2009

One of the most characteristic features of a society is the way in which it organizes its time, designating special days and hours for work, religion, rest, recreation and commerce. Socially accepted patterns of temporal organization are essential to the development of communal activities such as festivals, sports, religious ceremonies, market-place trade and industrial production. Once introduced, patterns of temporal organization tend to establish themselves more and more firmly through time as they become rooted in the customs and traditions of the local population. They are only likely to be changed as a result of wide-ranging social, economic and demographic changes affecting the whole fabric of society. Any possible changes in established temporal patterns usually have both advocates and opponents, and actual changes often result from temporary or permanent shifts in the balance of power between different socio-economic groups, or from shifts in opinion promoted by external factors.
The Influence of Social Class on Activity Preferences of Comunidades Eclesiais de Base (CEBs) in the Archdiocese of São Paulo
Authors: Hewitt W. E.
Published: February 2009

A number of interpretations have recently emerged which attempt to explain the nature and sociopolitical implications of Roman Catholic base Christian communities (CEBs) in Brazil. Most studies have tended to describe these small, informal lay groups as a predominantly lower-class phenomenon which is facilitating the self-liberation of the poor from the weight of centuries-old political and economic oppression.
Women and crime: Buenos Aires, 1757–97
Authors: Socolow Susan Migden
Published: February 2009

Crime reflects social values, for it indicates what is viewed as abnormal or deviant behavior (and conversely what is acceptable behavior), and the degree to which that behavior is abhorrent to society in general. In addition to reflecting general values, crime as it involves one racial, sexual or social group can shed light on the attitude of the ruling elite toward a specific group, and the social position of that group within a larger context. Lastly, crime reflects class and power relations by allowing us to study the relationship of the criminal to the victim and their relationship to the legal mechanism. The study of crime as a valid field for historical research has been well explored by European historians but, within the field of Latin American history, it is relatively new.1It is, nevertheless, an area deserving of study in our attempt to understand more fully colonial Spanish society.
Agricultural Commodity Control under Vargas in Brazil, 1930–1945
Authors: Gordon-Ashworth Fiona
Published: February 2009

The ground covered by recent studies on Brazil between 1930 and 1945 has fallen into two main schools of interest: one has concentrated on the political history of this period; the other on the background to Brazilian industrialization. With the exception of coffee and rice, Brazilian agriculture has remained relatively neglected as an area of research. Yet the importance of Brazilian agriculture both as a source for domestic consumption requirements and also as an export earner has constantly been presented as the explanation for the political evolution of Brazil in these years and the concomitant increased interest shown in the development of Brazilian manufacturing industries. This paper will concentrate on the Brazilian agricultural sector and will consider the nature of Vargas's agriculturalautarquias— that is, the semi-autonomous administrative units Vargas established to supervise and direct the activities of selected areas of the economy and of society. It is hoped that, in so doing, it will contribute to a deeper understanding of how Getúlio Vargas governed Brazil between 1930 and 1945.
Hacienda and Free Community in Eighteenth Century Alto Peru: A Demographic Study of the Aymara Population of the Districts of Chulumani and Pacajes in 1786
Authors: Klein Herbert S.
Published: February 2009

In the history of rural society in Latin America, the interplay between the large landed estate, or hacienda, and the free Indian landowning community, known as ayllu or ejido, has proven one of the most complex issues to understand. The struggle for land, labour and markets between these two seemingly competitive rural landholding institutions varied both time and space and only in a few limited areas has this interrelationship been fully analyzed.
Professionalization and Politicization as Mativational Factors in the Brazilian Army Coup of 15 November, 1889
Authors: Dudley William S.
Published: February 2009

One of the clearest trends in Latin American government during the past decade has been the establishment of military dictatorships in many South American countries, some of them long-term. Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru and Uruguay have all had this experience. In efforts to explain this phenomenon, many scholars have delved into the political history of civil-military relations in Latin American society since 1930. A recent penchant for contemporary history, promoted in part by the availability of funds for policy-oriented research, has stimulated this concern. In the process, however, the deeper historical roots of the institutional development of the Latin American military have been neglected.1
Slavery and Race in the Evolution of Latin American Societies: Some Recent Contributions to the Debate
Authors: Mörner Magnus
Published: February 2009

Why are the patterns of race relations in Latin America and Anglo-America today so different, particularly those between ‘Blacks’ and ‘Whites’? Is the explanation to be found, primarily, in the differences between the previously existing ‘systems of slavery’? Ever since Frank Tannenbaum, in 1947, made his famous statement on the ‘benign’ nature of ‘Latin American slavery’ as opposed to the ‘harsh’ nature of that in North America, these two issues have triggered a most lively debate, largely historical in nature but attracting representatives of other disciplines as well.1
The Agrarian Reform of Jacobo Arbenz
Authors: Gleijeses Piero
Published: February 2009

The cry for land is, without any doubt, the loudest, the most dramatic and the most desperate sound in Guatemala.’ So wrote the Guatemalan bishops in 1988. In their country's long history, the bishops stated, only one president – Jacobo Arbenz – had addressed the issue of land reform.1Inaugurated in 1951, Arbenz presided over the most successful agrarian reform in the history of Central America. The reports of the US embassy bear testimony to the fact that within eighteen months land was distributed to 100,000 peasant families, amid little violence and without adversely affecting production.2Praise for initiating the reform does not belong, however, solely to Arbenz. As his wife observed, ‘Alone, he could not have done it’. Praise should also be given to the Communist party of Guatemala, whose leaders were Arbenz's closest personal and political friends.3
In Search of Revenue: Tax Reform in Mexico under the Administrations of Echeverría and Salinas
Authors: Elizondo Carlos
Published: February 2009

This paper analyses two efforts of the Mexican Federal Government to implement a tax reform. The first was made by the Echeverría administration (1970–6). The second is currently taking place under the Salinas government, in office since December 1988.

My aim is to understand what economic, ideological and political conditions give rise to a successful tax reform. I will focus on government relations with business, in particular with big business; and on the nature of the proposed tax reforms (each of which had different distributional costs). The question is how these factors affected the outcome of the two reforms. While Echeverría's progressive reform was subsequently replaced by an increase in tax rates, the second, that of Salinas, has, so far, been successful.
The Anglo-Argentine Connection and the War of 1914—1918
Authors: Gravil Roger
Published: February 2009

The hypothesis of Andre Gunder Frank that Latin America's underdevelopment is partly attributable to unequal exchange in economic relations with the advanced world includes the obverse proposition that Latin America's growth has been most substantial in periods such as wartime when links with the metropolitan countries were weakened. The most explicit statement of this view occurs in the book,Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution: … the satellites experience their greatest economic development and especially their most classically capitalist industrial development if and when their ties to their metropolis are weakest. This hypothesis is almost diametrically opposed to the generally accepted thesis that development in the underdeveloped countries follows from the greatest degree of contact with and diffusion from the metropolitan developed countries.
The United States and Chile during the Second World War: the Diplomacy of Misunderstanding
Authors: Francis Michael J.
Published: February 2009

During most of 1942 the United States Department of State attempted to cajole, flatter, or force the Government of Chile to break diplomatic relations with the Axis powers. The reluctance of both Chile and Argentina to join the other Latin American countries in severing relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan soon reached the level of a major foreign policy controversy, and United States officials became incensed at Chile's ‘timidity’ in joining the crusade against fascism. The misunderstanding between them, this analysis will argue, stemmed from the nature of the situation and of the parties involved.
Rural Production and Labour in Late Colonial Buenos Aires
Authors: Amaral Samuel
Published: February 2009

The Old World had known of the fabulous riches of Mexican and Peruvian mines for well over a century when reports began to come in of the wealth of the Buenos Aires pampas. Acarete du Biscay and Antonio de Ulloa were among those astounded by the abundant herds of wild cattle to be found on those endless plains and the latter's writings provided Adam Smith with examples of a primitive economy.1By the timeThe Wealth of Nationswas published, however, that early primitiveness was changing. According to Cosme Bueno, the increasing demand for hides for export had brought about a decline in the number of cattle around Buenos Aires with the result that simple hunting had become cattle raising.2The supply of meat to the city had always necessitated cattle raising, but the ever-erratic demand for export hides had to be met by hunting expeditions - thevaquerías. No new hunting licences were granted after 1720 and the first surprise attacks a few years later by Pampa indians looking for domestic cattle signalled the end of the wild herds.3The intensification of foreign demand for hides led in the first place to the spread of thevaqueríasinto Entre Ríos and the Banda Oriental and, later on, particularly after the adoption of free-trade policies by post-revolutionary governments, to the proliferation of estancias on the Buenos Aires pampas.
British Foreign Policy in the Caribbean Basin 1938–1945: Oil, Nationalism and Relations with the United States
Authors: Knape John
Published: February 2009

The formulation of foreign policy is at best an inchoate process. The very term implies an orthodoxy of identification, pursuit and maintenance of perceived interests which is often patently lacking in reality. When a nation is beset by a declining capacity to exert influence in a particular region as a result both of competition from other powers and of incipient assertiveness on the part of local interests, the foreign-policy process may be reduced to one of administering ad hoc responses to particular developments which appear to lack any overall rationale.
Consuls and Silver Contraband on Mexico's West Coast in the Era of Santa Anna
Authors: Mayo John
Published: February 2009

Mexico achieved independence in 1821. With the definitive cutting of the imperial ties with Spain, already weakened by the impact of the Napoleonic Wars, the country began to play an individual role in the world economy. The end of Spanish rule and the departure of many Spaniards opened up new positions and new opportunities for Mexicans. Some they seized immediately as in government and the army; others they lacked in some measure the skills, inclination or capital to exploit. One of the more difficult areas was overseas trade, which had been largely the preserve ofpeninsulares. Their departure provided the occasion for the arrival of numbers of foreigners, who established merchant houses in trading centres, and assumed the role of middlemen in Mexico's foreign trade.
Race and Social Control in Independent Brazil
Authors: Flory Thomas
Published: February 2009

Historians of the age of revolution have often pointed out the contradictions inherent in the preservation of slavery within political structures self-defined as liberal. In Latin America many a nineteenth-century apologist stymied the question by citing the countervailing inviolability of property rights as justification for the continued bondage of slaves to their masters; but what, then, explains the discriminatory treatment offreeblacks and mulattoes under nominally liberal regimes? Within free society no such ideological impasse can be identified, yet an analogous, if informal, subordination of the rights of the free colored is amply documented. And the analogy may be extended to include the free poor, regardless of color. At this point matters of race and class overlap, raising important questions about social relations and policies that cannot be answered by reference to formal ideology alone.
A Populist Precursor: Guillermo Billinghurst
Authors: Blanchard Peter
Published: February 2009

The term ‘populism’ has been used to describe many of the popular movements that have appeared in Latin America in recent decades. It is an ‘imprecise term’, to use the words of Professor Skidmore, and the large number of definitions available, indicates how imprecise the term, in fact, has become. Definitions of a universal nature are of limited use, for populism seems to vary according to geographical region: the North American populist differs from the Russian populist, who differs from the African populist, who differs from the Latin American populist, and so on. Even when dealing with the specific area of Latin America there is no consistency. Writers disagree on whether Latin American populists are Left- or Right- Wing, anti- or pro-status quo, reformists or opportunists, rigid or flexible with regard to ideology.
The Satiric Penny Press for Workers in Mexico, 1900–1910: A Case Study in the Politicisation of Popular Culture
Authors: Díaz María Elena
Published: February 2009

In 1908 an editorial inEl Diablito Rojo, itself a penny journal, made some disparaging, yet revealing, remarks regarding the impact of the penny press of the time on Mexican workers:

There is hardly a worker in Mexico [today] who every morning does not bring to his workshop or leave at home the paper of the day in addition to the small papers dedicated to workers which he acquires with real pleasure. In the big paper [the worker] looks for the daily news… in the small weekly he looks for a joke, a caricature, an anecdote; something that can distract or instruct him…

But is that small press useful to its readers?… No: the journals constituting the small press all call themselves defenders of the worker and preach a dangerous gospel: hate of the bourgeois… [so that today] The worker already sees the bourgeois as an ogre…

The small press does not… demonstrate to the worker the evils brought about by rebellion or violence, instead it tries to flatter the proletariat, indeed defending it in its own way when it is victimised, but only by fomenting in him a bad attitude towards his work.1
The Death of Francisco Arana: A Turning Point in the Guatemalan Revolution
Authors: Gleijeses Piero
Published: February 2009

In the late morning of 18 July 1949, several armed men sped from Guatemala City in two cars. Near a small bridge, the Puente de la Gloria, they waited for Francisco Arana, Chief of the Armed Forces of Guatemala. They did not have to wait for long. As Arana and his three companions approached the Puente de la Gloria, ‘there was, on the other side, a grey Dodge, because of which, seeing that it was impossible to cross the bridge, Col. Arana stopped the car’.1A brief shoot-out ensued. Arana lay dead. There was no investigation of his murder. His assassins were never apprehended.
The Evolution of the Amazon Peasantry
Authors: Ross Eric B.
Published: February 2009

The empirical validity of traditional perspectives on poverty and under-development has been seriously challenged over the past decade. In contrast to emphasis on what were said to be disfunctional characteristics of the poor themselves, attention has been redirected towards economic and ecological factors which reveal much of the cultural repertoire of peasants and urban and rural poor to be a positive or adaptive response to limits imposed on them by the political economy of capitalism.
The State and Capital Accumulation in Mexico
Authors: Fitzgerald E. V.K.
Published: February 2009

The economic activities of the state have rightly been regarded as a crucial factor in the remarkably rapid process of capitalist expansion experienced by Mexico in the two decades after the Second World War, and must also be seen as such in the imbalance that has emerged over the last ten years –an imbalance that itself led to an accelerated growth of the public sector. State intervention in the process of capital accumulation during the period of dependent import-substituting industrialization is common to the experience of Latin America as a whole, but in Mexico the scale and scope of this intervention appear to have been greater than elsewhere, generating an important debate over the size of the Mexican public sector in the 1960s, and now providing a significant case to be examined in the light of current discussions as to the relative autonomy of the state in capitalist economies.
United States Policy Responses to the Mexican Revolution: A Partial Application of the Bureaucratic Politics Model
Authors: Sloan John W.
Published: February 2009

The study of United States foreign policy has recently been invigorated by the introduction of Graham Allison's bureaucratic politics model (BPM). The basic unit of analysis of the BPM is governmental action viewed as political resultant. In Allison's words, the actions of governments are ‘resultants in the sense that what happens is not chosen as a solution to a problem but rather results from compromise, conflict, and confusion of officials with diverse interests and unequal influence…’. The BPM assumes that different players will have different perspectives toward similar problems, that is, they will each see different ‘faces’ of the same issue. The basic assumption of the BPM as it is applied to United States foreign policy toward Latin America by scholars such as Abraham Lowenthal is that United States decision-makes, who share power in both the formulation and implementation of policy, have differing points of view because of their differing organizational and personal perspectives.
Partnership and Profit in the Early Andean Trade: The Experiences of Quito Merchants, 1580–1610
Authors: Super John C.
Published: February 2009

Quito was an international trading city in the late sixteenth century. It was one of several commercial centers strung along the Andes that aided in the adaptation of Old World economic techniques to New World resources. By the 1580s, agricultural and manufacturing surpluses had helped Quito emerge as a dominant trading center in western South America, second only to Lima and Potosí.
The Anglo-Guatemalan Territorial Dispute over the Colony of Belize (British Honduras)
Authors: Menon P. K.
Published: February 2009

The subject of this study is the controversial territorial claim concerning British Honduras or Belize,1 a coastal strip some 174 miles long and about 70 miles broad at its widest point, lying on the eastern seaboard of Central America between 15° 54' and 18° 29' north latitude, and 88° II' (or, including the offshore islands, 87° 28') and 89° 13½' west longitude. 2 Its area of 8,867 square miles is roughly equal to that of Wales or twice the size of Jamaica. It is the second smallest political division on the American continent, being slightly larger than El Salvador, the smallest Latin American State.3 It is bounded on the north and north-west by Mexico, the boundary following the Hondo river; on the south and west by Guatemala, the southern boundary being the Sarstoon river; and on the east by the Carribbean Sea.4
The End of Innocence: Peruvian Foreign Policy and the United States, 1919–1942
Authors: St John Ronald Bruce
Published: February 2009

From 1919 to 1942, Peruvian foreign policy focused on two interrelated issues: the resolution of Peru's territorial disputes with Chile, Colombia and Ecuador, and the reconciliation of an expanding and deepening relationship with the United States government. The two issues were entwined since the Peruvian government and people, for part of the period, expected the support and assistance of the United States government in resolving the three territorial issues. Partially in an attempt to respond to these expectations, the United States government was aggressively and extensively involved, albeit sometimes in a manner contrary to Peruvian desires, in the resolution of all three disputes. On the whole, United States foreign policy seldom equaled Peruvian expectations throughout the period, and its failure to do so precipitated or accelerated the growth of major new tenets in Peruvian foreign policy.
Slavery, Ideology, and Institutional Change: the Impact of the Enlightenment on Slavery in Late Eighteenth-Century Maranhão
Authors: Maclachlan Colin M.
Published: February 2009

Every institution rests upon a philosophical base that both supports it and lends a certain character to its functions. As the philosophical support changes, one can expect institutional change to follow. Responding to the philosophical environment, an institution may be modified or, if support is withdrawn, fade into history. Institutions, however, do not react in a uniform fashion. The degree of change depends on the social consequences, as well as upon the possibility of achieving reform without an unacceptable amount of disorder.
Chile and the World Depression of the 1870s
Authors: Sater William F.
Published: February 2009

The decade of the 1870s began auspiciously in Europe. Germany, rich with French reparations and enlarged by the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, embarked on an era of prosperity, expanding its railroads and industrial base. Investment in industrial and commercial sectors doubled though many of the newly-founded corporations were extremely speculative. The frenetic good times ended in the spring of 1873: a crisis developed in Austria which quickly enveloped its neighbors. Soon German banks and companies, founded in the era of easy money, collapsed. The crisis leapfrogged the Channel to England where interest rates quickly soared and business activity slowed down.
Liberation Theology and Christian Radicalism in Contemporary Latin America
Authors: Dodson Michael
Published: February 2009

For the past decade and a half, Latin American Catholicism has been a focal point of extraordinary religious change and political activism. Although the first visible signs of religious renewal in the traditionally conservative Latin American church did not appear until the early 1960s, a mere decade later, in 1972, Christians for Socialism had held an international meeting of radical Christians in Santiago, Chile. Today, Latin American bishops and Christian base communities throughout the continent are deeply involved in the struggle to preserve human rights against the encroachments of authoritarian regimes. One of the most controversial aspects of the changing Latin American church has been the emergence of organized movements of Christian radicals who sought to use religion as a base from which to transform society through political action. Sizeable priest movements of the left appeared in such countries as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru, where they had a notable impact on national politics. Acting from the premise that Christian faith must be linked to social action to be meaningful, radicalized Christians joined a dialogue with Marxism, denounced social injustices, provided leadership to politically marginal groups and struggled to change the very nature of the Latin American Catholic Church. The rationale and justification of such action was provided in the collection of writings known as the theology of liberation.
The Depopulation of Nicaragua in the Sixteenth Century
Authors: Newson Linda
Published: February 2009

At the time of the Spanish conquest Nicaragua was inhabited by tribes and chiefdoms whose total population ran into hundreds of thousands: today only 4 per cent of the population is classified as Indian. With the exception of a short period in the eighteenth century, the Indian population has declined continuously since the sixteenth century, with the greatest losses being sustained during the first few decades of Spanish rule. Reconstructing the demographic history of Nicaragua is not an easy task since much of the documentary record has been lost as the result of natural disasters and political upheavals.
The Fiscal Problems of Nineteenth-Century Colombia
Authors: Deas Malcolm
Published: February 2009

The assertion that a country is rich, or a government is powerful, is usually followed by some description of what that entails. Conversely, poverty and weakness are not so often explored in all their detail, though they too are complicated matters. Public finance is one point of entry.1 According to Joseph Schumpeter, it is ‘one of the best starting points for an investigation of society, especially though not exclusively of its political life. The spirit of a people, its cultural level, its social structure, the deeds its policy may prepare – all this and more is written in its fiscal history, stripped of all phrases’.
Iron Mining and Socio-Demographic Change in Eastern Cuba, 1884–1940
Authors: Perez Lisandro
Published: February 2009

During the first four decades of this century a profound change took place in eastern Cuba, especially in the province of Oriente. Its most obvious indicators are demographic: at the turn of the century, Oriente was only the third- largest of the six provinces in population, yet by 1919 it already occupied the number one position. Between 1899 and 1943 the province grew 313.9 per cent, much faster than either the national population (203.8) or the population of the province in which the capital city is located (Havana, 190.9).
Miners and National Politics in Peru, 1900–1974
Authors: Laite Julian
Published: February 2009

For much of the twentieth century the Peruvian working-class has been limited in size and divided between different groups with divergent political objectives. Successive Peruvian governments have been able to capitalize on these features in their attempts to control the working-class, directly regulating workers' organizations or playing off one group against another. Yet, despite these limits and divisions, workers have on several occasions staged general strikes and pressured governments into taking account of their demands. Consequently, the political development of sectors of the working-class at the local level has been closely affected by political processes at the national level.
Brazil and the Post-Versailles World: Elite Images and Foreign Policy Strategy, 1919–1929
Authors: Hilton Stanley E.
Published: February 2009

The 1920s remain a relatively neglected period in Brazilian historiography despite a recent boom in the study of contemporary Brazilian history and despite the intrinsic importance of that era.1The post-war years constituted a watershed in the evolution of Brazilian culture, for example, as poets, novelists, artists and otherpensantsrejected further imitation of foreign models.2The effervescence in the cultural sphere found ample resonance in political life; indeed, during the 1920s republican institutions were perhaps more seriously questioned than at any time since the early 1890s. The establishment of the Communist Party (1922) and the phenomenon oftenentismowere the most obvious manifestations of the erosion of the national consensus.3The absence of an extensive body of scholarly literature on these subjects notwithstanding, their general configuration is at least familiar. One neglected field of inquiry, however, is foreign policy, the subject of this article. The aim of this exploratory probe is not to survey Brazil's diplomatic relations during the period; rather, the central analytical focus here is on the linkage between elite images and foreign policy strategy, the underlying premise being that policy decisions depend upon how policy-makers view their external environment.4
The Communist Party of Cuba Since the First Congress
Authors: Leogrande William M.
Published: February 2009

The main concern of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) in recent years has been to lead and supervise the implementation of the resolutions adopted at its First Congress in 1975. Those resolutions cover a broad range of political, social, and economic issues, so that a full account of the Party's work over the past 5 years would require a complete survey of Cuba's domestic and foreign policies during that period.1 The very breadth of the PCC's work agenda in the latter half of the 1970s indicates how much the role of the Party in Cuba has evolved over the past decade;2 such responsibilities demonstrate a continuation of the process of strengthening the Party begun in the early 1970s.
Allende's Chile: Contemporary History and the Counterfactual
Authors: Collier Simon
Published: February 2009

Historians generally recognize that the writing of contemporary history is an exercise of some delicacy. Narrating the contests of the Christian sects at the time of Constantine, Edward Gibbon remarks that ‘the fierce and partial writers of the times, ascribingallvirtue to themselves andallguilt to their adversaries, have painted the battle of the angels and the daemons. Our calmer reason,’ he goes on, ‘will reject such pure and perfect monsters of vice and sanctity.’