Throughout the Spanish–American wars of independence Britain's policy was to observe a strict neutrality between Spain and the colonial revolutionaries. This did not reflect an indifferent detachment or a commitment to even-handed justice, but was rather dictated by the pursuit of Britain's own interests, which necessitated the maintenance of good relations both with Spain and with Spanish America. During the period of the Peninsular War of 1808–14 Spain was a vital ally against Napoleon, and after the war was over she remained an important element in the European collective security system that Lord Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, constructed to prevent the re-emergence of French dominance. Accordingly Britain refused requests from the revolutionary regimes in South America to recognise their independence or to help them to defend it against the mother country. At the same time Britain declined to assist her Spanish ally in recovering control over the rebellious territories, as she had no desire to imperil the important commerical links she was developing with the emergent states of Spanish America. Both parties continued to try to enlist British assistance, and both of them at times complained of breaches of neutrality by British officials. But for several years Britain walked her tightrope very successfully.

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.1 By the time The Wealth of Nations was 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.2 The 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 - the vaquerías. 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.3 The intensification of foreign demand for hides led in the first place to the spread of the vaquerías into 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.

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.

There is currently a renewed interest in the relationship between economic fluctations and strike movements which refers back to an article by Eric Hobsbawm1 and an even earlier polemical piece by Leon Trotsky.2 This article offers a contribution to the growing literature, focusing, unlike most other studies, on a Third.World country. It also reflects the increasing influence of social history in Latin American research on the making of the working class.

This paper focuses on the question of whether and how rural industry contributed to the advance of modern industrialization in Colombia. The question is of considerable interest to students of developing countries, since rural industry remains quite important (especially when assessed by the level of employment created) in many such countries, and there is evidence that it may be relatively efficient under the prevailing conditions of labour abundance and capital shortage.

By 1930 there were £435.1 million of British capital invested in Argentina, 62.3% of which was located in railway companies whose securities duly yielded reasonable annual profits. However, the onset of the Great Depression and the successful 1930 revolution brought this state of affairs to a standstill. Moreover, both events inaugurated years of growing difficulties for the British-owned railways and the British government, for whom these public utilities gradually turned into economic hostages and a potential source of conflict in Anglo-Argentine relations. On the one hand, the railways were slowly squeezed between rising operating costs and regulated tariffs while their net receipts dwindled becausé of the crisis. Furthermore, the companies began to experience the following: growing hostility from a local public opinion who resented their foreign ownership; the adverse effects of the Argentine nationalistic economic policies; and had to find suitable new courses of action to deal with government officials who were not wholly sympathetic to their interests. On the other hand, although Whitehall could not fail to consider that to some extent the railways were the backbone of Britain's economic stronghold in the Argentine, they also had other substantial trading, financial and shipping interests at stake in this highly profitable market. Therefore, the British government began to weigh carefully the role of these public utilities in British policy towards Argentina; the real prospects of a clash with Argentina if the railways' finances deteriorated too much and the Foreign Office intervened on their behalf; and whether their aspirations should be considered on the same standing as other British concerns in the Argentine.

For approximately the last two-and-a-half decades it has been a stated goal of both Honduran and U.S. policy to improve the welfare of the Honduran people, both directly through the provision of services and indirectly through the promotion of economic development. The need is great; Honduras has the lowest per capita GNP in Central America ($660 in 1984) and the highest population growth rate (3.4%). It also has the second highest percentage of its population living in rural areas (61%). Consequently, rural development has been a primary concern of development programs.

On a hot day in early 1890, American steam dredgers lowered their scoops into the mud of the San Juan River in Nicaragua, and so began the job of connecting the seas.

The historiography of the Nicaraguan workers' movement suffers from two basic problems: an extreme paucity and dispersion of primary sources and a tendency to compensate with analytic frameworks for what is lacking in substance. The triumph of a revolutionary movement in 1979, genuinely interested in allowing the Nicaraguan people to become ‘dueños de su historia’, has stimulated the search for primary source materials and has awakened the interest of historians in the trajectory of class struggle in Nicaragua. However, if at this moment, we do not confront fundamental methodological problems this new search for the past will offer precious little illumination on the problems of class development and conflict in contemporary Nicaragua.

This paper examines the sensitivity of current account balances to several important variables. Variables are classified as external and domestic. External variables are those over which Central American countries have little or no control. In this study external variables are real interest rates in world capital markets, the terms of trade, and growth in the developed countries. Low real interest rates, improved terms of trade and rapid growth in the developed countries would be expected to improve current account balances. Domestic variables include budget deficits and real exchange rates. These are factors over which Central American countries do have control. Budget deficits and appreciations of real exchange rates can be expected to cause deteriorations in current account balances.

On 11 January 1986, the Sandinista government announced the modification of the 1981 Agrarian Reform Law. The new law institutionalizes significant changes in Sandinista agrarian policy which have yet to be analyzed. The changes introduced suggest that the Nicaraguan agrarian reform was reaching its limits during 1985, after successfully distributing 2,523,388 manzanas of land to 83,322 families. Further, six years into the institutionalization of the Nicaraguan revolution the balance of forces which had emerged required a re-evaluation of policies designed to achieve one of the central goals of the revolution – to radically change the socio-economic conditions of the Nicaraguan peasantry through the implementation of an agrarian reform.

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 of peninsulares. 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.

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.