Economic considerations all but dominate recent historical writing in this country about the railroads of Mexico. Technical matters of construction and operation, as well as the role of the state in both, are touched upon, but economic interpretation, whether of the development of a railway system or of its impact on the nation, is the watchword if not catchword of most writing. Probably the leading example of the dominant approach is Growth against Development: The Economic Impact of Railroads in Porfirian Mexico (Northern Illinois University Press, 1981), by John H. Coatsworth, in which the author concludes that, while “the short run contribution of railroads to economic growth was large,” their longrun impact helped “to create the underdeveloped country Mexico has become.” Applying economic theory and measuring, Coatsworth in essence proves with numbers a case argued more elegantly in straight prose early in this century: that the application of a modern transportation network to a staple producing economy will do little more than extend and intensify the production system so as to increase the staple output.

The year 1976 is correctly taken to be the bicentennial year of United States independence, which officially began on July 4, 1776. In a broader sense, however, the year 1776 was also pivotal year in the “Age of the Democratic Revolution” that swept through the entire Atlantic Community of nations during the last decades of the eighteenth century and the first decades of the nineteenth.

This year, 1976, therefore, may also be properly considered the bicentennial of the opening year of the “age of revolutions” in the whole of America. Professor Robert R. Palmer, in his distinguished work on the subject, convincingly shows that, as he says,

Each nation views its own statesmen with a particular bias. This prejudiced opinion is generally more pronounced when the statesmen involved are “ founding father ” types. Other eyes, though not perhaps objective, saw prominent figures in United States history in a different light, and an alien culture elicited unique comments by one particularly literate and vocal observer.

On September 11, 1875, a select group of intellectuals met in the house of Don Alejandro Arango y Escandón. They came for the purpose of organizing and constituting in Mexico the Academia Mexicana Correspondiente de la Real Española. The group was made up of Don José María Bassoco, Don Alejandro Arango y Escandón, Don Casimiro del Collado, Don Francisco Pimentel, Don José Sebastián Segura, Don Manuel Peredo, Don José María Roa Barcena, Don Manuel Orozco y Berra, and Don Rafael Angel de la Peña. Also among them was a man in the prime of life : strong of body, with a kind but penetrating gaze, totally without affectation, yet extremely persuasive; his whole manner attractive and distinguished. What was he doing among all these others whom Fame had already made her chosen favorites, since this man always modestly recalled the fact that he had never had the opportunity of attending a public school? Yet that same gentleman was to become the very soul of this scholarly body, even though he insistently declared the contrary through the succeeding years; the succeeding years in which he was to mount that height in which his name would live both within and without our country from generation to generation. This genius in the world of letters was Don Joaquín García Icazbalceta.

Lacking in the standard histories of the California missions as well as in several excellent biographical sketches, are long-sought, important vital statistics with regard to two among California’s greatest missionaries, Fray Francisco Palóu, O.F.M., and Fray Fermín Francisco Lasuén, O.F.M., respectively California’s first historian and the California missions’ second regularly appointed presidente. Why the chronological niche of the two missionaries in the facade of California history has stood unfinished is due to peculiar circumstances of recording and the hideout that certain necessary documents have maintained. Other missionaries, less prominent, are often much better outlined in Franciscan chronology.

With regard to Palóu, our interest centers on the exact day and year of his death. Even that of his birth was made known only in 1924 through the combined efforts of the Rev. LeRoy Callahan of the diocesan clergy of Los Angeles, and the Rev. Zephyrin Engelhardt, O.F.M., of Mission Santa Barbara. Father Callahan was in Mallorca doing research work on the early life of Junípero Serra while Father Engelhardt was composing his San Francisco Mission.

A watershed in Peru's development, and perhaps its most traumatic experience as an independent republic, was its humiliating defeat at the hands of Chile during the War of the Pacific (1879-1883). The impact of the war was profound. Virtually every aspect of Peruvian political, economic, and social life was affected. The army was defeated, the country invaded, and Lima occupied. By the peace treaty, Peru's nitrate-bearing southern provinces were handed over to Chile, depriving it of its most important source of income. The economy of the country was further undermined by the war-time destruction of many coastal sugar and cotton plantations. Economic collapse was accompanied by political chaos. Fighting continued after the end of the war as forces loyal to General Andrés A. Cáceres, who had carried out an effective guerrilla campaign against the Chileans in the sierra, now aimed their guns at the Chilean-imposed government of General Miguel Iglesias. In December 1885 they captured Lima, paving the way for Cáceres' election as president.