O papel da familia extensa patriarcal é largamente conhecido através os estudos históricos e sociológicos da civilização brasileña anterior á presente fase de intensa urbanização e desenvolvimento econômico. Os cronistas, historiadores, demógrafos, os cientistas naturais ou simples viajantes que visitaram o país desde o período colonial deixaram-nos informes e observações sobre aquele tipo de familia. Foi, porém, Gilberto Freyre quem dedicou urna atenção especial a instituição, analisando-a desde os seus primordios até os mais ayancados estágios da sua decadencia na obra cíclica que a mesma consagrou e que se representa de modo específico nas monografías Casa Grande e Senzala, referente ao período da completa predominancia da plantation agucareira e do apogeu do patriarcalismo rural, Sobrados e Mocambos, relativa a época da diversificagáo da sociedade colonial com o crescimento e ascengáo política e social das populações urbanas, e, por último, Ordem e Progresso, a análisis das mudangas ligadas a desintegração do sistema escravagista desde a Lei do Ventre Livre aos primordios da República de 1889. Freyre e outros chamaran atengáo para a influência desse padráo fundamental sobre outros tipos de familia ainda existentes na sociedade brasileira.

In 1952, Bolivia experienced the most thorough-going social revolution in Latin America since the Mexican upheaval early in this century. In the twelve years which have followed, the Andean republic has made remarkable progress in breaking down centuries-old societal gaps and forging an integrated nation. The Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (MNR), which inspired the revolution and which has retained firm political leadership of the nation, has played a vital role in politically activating the traditional Indian segment of the population. Prior to 1952, there had been very little communication between this indigenous majority and the Westarnized minority; this “vertical” cleavage was ona major barrier to the political socialization of Bolivia. On a “horizontal” plane, the process was further complicated by cleavages among the various Indian groups and, predominantly along regional lines, among the relatively homogeneous whites.

Recent events have once again focussed attention upon the Republic of Bolivia and the efforts of its governing party, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, to grapple with the realities of a chaotic economy and a changing social and political order.

Yet, studies of the development of the Bolivian social revolution have not kept pace with Bolivia's increased prominence in news reports, perhaps because of the inavailability and widely-scattered nature of source materials. Bolivian source materials cannot be considered in a vacuum, however, and a brief survey of recent Bolivian history is in order here.

Alberdi fue el más grande y sutil ironista de la literatura argentina. Sus críticos lo han estudiado como político, internacionalista y sociólogo. Ninguno advirtió la inmensa ironía que lo distingue entre sus compatriotas. La ironía, esa burla fina, disimulada, tan difícil de alcanzar cuando no se posee un talento especial, sólo se encuentra, en la literatura argentina, en escritores muy posteriores y, salvo raras excepiones, no logra la espontaneidad, la gracia y la hondura que fluyen del espíritu de Alberdi. Esta ironía es propia de los hombres solitarios, a menudo tristes, que contemplan el mundo con desdén porque descubren sus debilidades, sus ridiculeces, y, por tanto, terminan por despreciarlo.

In recent years the problem of the external indebtedness of non-oil-exporting countries has gained significant weight in public discussion. With the quadrupling of oil prices since the end of 1973, a rapid increase in the borrowing of LDCs has occurred. The standard of living in these countries is extremely low to begin with; any further room for downward adjustment to offset higher cost of oil imports through a slowing down of economy is simply an unacceptable possibility. Moreover, any further economic restraint on the already slower pace of development would be politically unpopular for the leaders in developing countries. Consequently, many LDCs have resorted to increasing external borrowings to pay for the oil bill, as well as to maintain a minimum rate of economic growth. The total external public debt of these countries is now estimated at around $200 billion (U.S. Senate, 1977: 51). This paper examines the debt servicing experience of Brazil. Lately, Brazil has been the center of attention because it owes some $25-$30 billion to foreign creditors. Its debt servicing burden for 1977 would be approximately $5.3 billion, or 40% of an estimated $12 billion in export earnings.

In geographic studies of modernization, attention has tended to focus on the processes of urbanization and the characteristics of urban areas rather than on rural areas. The latter have been included in macro-scale studies such as those of Gould and Soja in Africa investigating the spatial diffusion of modernization. In their studies of change in the Pacific, Brookfield (1973) and his associates also worked in rural communities, concentrating on the micro-scale. In research dealing with change in rural Latin America, emphasis has been on colonization studies and ruralurban migration, (Parsons, 1973; Preston, 1974; Stouse, 1971) but study of the effects of urbanization on change within a traditional rural areas has been neglected. Further, there have been few attempts in research on modernization to integrate macro and micro studies or to work at an intermediate scale.

Perhaps the most interesting, and certainly the most complicated, of the many activities relating to Brazilian iron ore development are those associated with the Rio Doce Valley. This valley, which lies about 225 miles north of Rio de Janeiro, is a natural corridor from the sea to the rich Itabira ore fields in the state of Minas Gerais. Its value as a possible outlet for Itabira ore was noted as early as the first quarter of the nineteenth century by such figures as Cámara Bittencourt, Intendente General of the Diamantina district and Baron Wiihelm von Eschwege, a minerologist employed by the Portuguese government.

With an area of 83,000 square miles and a population of 600,000, British Guiana is one of the smallest countries on the South American continent. Its political importance is out of all proportion to its size or economic performance for the single reason that the People's Progressive Party (PPP), which won a clear majority in the Legislative Assembly elections of 1961, is completely dominated by a group of Communists.

British Guiana is still a colony under a governor who is a British civil servant nominated by the Colonial Office in London and who controls law and order, defense, and external affairs—the effective levers of command. The local government can thus be said to be in office but not in power, its range of action being extremely limited.

Any time a political system has to induct a formerly excluded group into the political process, there is apt to be some uncertainty about what the consequences will be. This has been true in the United States on several occasions. When the Nineteenth Amendment was under discussion, there was considerable interest in what effect the feminine vote would have. When Southern blacks began to vote in large numbers in the 1960s, politicians and scholars wondered what the consequences would be. In 1971, with the ratification of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, the impact of the youth vote is being debated, even though we have twenty years of sophisticated behavioral research to guide our speculation.

In the United States, the political process is basically stable and institutionalized. But many countries are not so fortunate, particularly those that are moving rapidly from a traditional to a modern style.

In the historiography of the philosophy of Mexican history and culture one of the begging questions has been the genesis of Samuel Ramos' book El perfil del hombre y la cultura en México (1934). Did this work, which shifted Mexican problems from a physical base to a psychological plane (Villegas, 1960: 135-136), spring full-blown or was it a reflection of attitudes shared by other intellectuals who defined a movement in the history of ideas? Ramos is usually credited as the initiator of national self-analysis (Diccionario Porrúa, 1971, 1723), and indeed he helped perpetuate the myth of his seminal role in the philosophical and characterological study of the Mexican (Ramos, 1943: 153). Moreover, Ramos stated that his work was the first to treat the “psychology of the Mexican” (see Castro, 1951: 36), yet this very theme was anticipated by Antonio Caso in 1925 (1925a).

Now that the nations of the Americas have emerged from the trauma of the debt debâcle of the 1980s and are well on their way to overcoming the effects of the Mexican financial crisis of 1994, it is useful to examine more closely the instruments that brought the region through this turbulent period. During this time, in which Latin America had neither direction nor resources, the policies were incubated that propelled a prodigious transformation in the economies and governance, and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) matured into a major resource for the American nations.

Since his death in 1949, the prestige of the eminent Mexican painter José Clemente Orozco has continued to grow as his artistic stature becomes more measurable. For this reason, if for no other, the early formative years of his career when the stylistic foundations of maturity were laid demand now more than ever careful scrutiny and evaluation. Among the early works of this artist none, in our opinion, is of greater interest and few are of higher quality than a collection of water colors known to students of Orozco as the House of Tears. In spite of their importance, however, these pictures have received only casual treatment from most writers. This essay embodies the earnest hope that our analysis of certain problems involved in the sources and style of House of Tears may at least kindle broader interest in the series as a whole.