This article with commentaries is presented experimentally in response to suggestions made to the editor by representatives of the LARR Board at the Ithaca meetings that topical articles of the type developed in Current Anthropology be solicited for the Review. The Current Anthropology (*) treatment consists of commissioning a specific article on a theme of moment, then circulating it prior to publication among a group of experts for commentary and publishing both together with a rebuttal by the author. Time did not permit a complete imitation of the process, but with the kind cooperation of the author and his sponsoring organization we have obtained permission to circulate in advance an article of interdisciplinary import which has appeared only recently in Spanish and printed the reactions of a selected group of experts in distinct disciplines. Neither did time allow the author his rebuttal in this issue, but we shall reserve space in Number 3 should he care to make use of it.

In his inclusive and detailed classification of rural settlement types in Latin America, Marshall Wolfe admirably succeeds in his intention “to describe patterns and relationships that are widely important in the region.” His discussion touches upon important realities of rural social life and its place in the national society which too often are ignored. Despite the modesty of his claims, the author's synthesis of data from many sources provides the basis of a conceptualization which should prove extremely useful as a frame of reference for many practical and scholarly interests. The generalizations he offers about the characteristics of the distinct settlement types, and the nature of their relations to each other and to national institutions, constitute a series of hypotheses worthy of being investigated by research projects designed primarily for that purpose.

A major development in research in latin american humanities in recent years has been the emergence of theater as a recognized research discipline, and a consequent, although uneven, increase in published investigation. Further, there has been a major shift in emphasis, in that the formerly predominant concentration on the Colonial period and the national approach has been broadened to include a rather considerable amount of material dealing with the 20th century. Before pursuing this further, however, it is necessary to outline certain problems which distinguish research in the field from other specialities within the extremely broad scope of Hispanic literature.

This essay is divided into three parts: a discussion of the pervasive role of Marxism-Leninism in Soviet Latin American studies; an examination of the contents of a collection of translated readings of USSR scholars tentatively entitled The Soviet Image of Latin America, 1945–1965: A Documentary History, and a general survey of certain basic works devoted to the principal Latin American themes prescribed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

Psychology is both a science and a profession. its development in any geographical area can be roughly gauged by such manifestations of scientific and professional activities as training, research and publication, and professional structures and organizations. The following analysis is based on a mail survey of schools of psychology conducted in late 1964 and personal visits by the author to thirty-two psychological institutions in Latin America in the summer of 1965.