The Central American Common Market (CACM) was once described as “the most successful example of economic integration in the Third World.” Today the CACM is nearly defunct, a victim of the smoldering crisis that erupted in Central America in 1979 following the second oil shock and the Nicaraguan Revolution. Various arguments may be found in the literature on the economics of the region that purport to explain this collapse.

Mexico achieved food self-sufficiency and raised rural living standards in the thirty years prior to the mid-sixties, yet the country is now plagued by a profound agricultural crisis that is manifesting itself in serious natural resource disequilibria, unemployment and underemployment, and inadequate food production. This seemingly contradictory outcome has resulted from an agricultural growth strategy that reoriented production toward agroexports and animal feeds. Understanding the effects of this strategy is essential because these same trends are the most important phenomena in the agricultural sector of many developing countries today (Barr 1981; Winrock International 1981; DeWalt 1983).

In January 1875, the Buenos Aires municipal council legalized female sexual commerce within authorized bordellos. A decade of rapid urbanization and population growth, characterized by a high proportion of unmarried males, had created problems of social control and public health that had to be addressed by city authorities. Assisted in their task by doctors specializing in public health who were aware of European legislation on the issue, councilmen enacted a law purportedly intended to improve public health. Instead, the desire to create revenues from exorbitant license fees meant that municipally regulated prostitution served principally to keep prostitutes off the streets and enlarge city coffers. It was not until 1888 that the Dispensario de Salubridad (or Prostitutes' Registry) was established along with the Sifilicomio (the venereal disease hospital) to periodically examine and treat women in licensed houses of prostitution.

The field of international relations and foreign policy in Latin America is presently experiencing tremendous institutional and intellectual growth. These developments are increasingly emphasizing economic and political determinants at the national and international levels over the traditional focus on diplomacy and international law. This article will address one of the major theoretical issues in the study of international relations: can structural theories provide anything more than very general predictions of international politics? In addition, because most work using this perspective focuses on great powers, I ask whether structural theories can explain the behavior of lesser powers.

La historia cuantitativa de la economía venezolana tiene antecedentes de importante significación. En particular, desde 1920 hasta el presente se dispone de cálculos y estimaciones del nivel agregado de la actividad económica. Más hacia atrás, sin embargo, la investigación histórica, ricamente documentada como sin duda lo es y por tanto de gran valor científico, apenas se ha ocupado en esa suerte de indagaciones macroeconómicas, al menos para intentar brindar una visión cuantitativa global del desempeño económico agregado.

Costa Rica has received greater attention from scholars in recent years than in the past. The nation's relative tranquility and stability compared with its neighbors continue to attract the attention of historians and social scientists seeking explanations for Costa Rican exceptionalism. The following summary of the main domestic sources of materials for studying the history of Costa Rica is presented in the hope of encouraging further research.

In 1980 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation announced that its Movietone newsfilm collection, containing documentary footage produced between 1919 and 1963, would be given to the University of South Carolina. Soon thereafter one-fifth of the collection, some twelve million feet of unduplicated footage, was shipped to the university's central campus in Columbia. Transfer of the film was suspended, however, when Twentieth Century Fox was purchased by a multinational corporation. Footage for the years between 1919 and 1935, and for the period from September 1942 through August 1944, was included in the initial gift. This material is presently housed and available for research in Columbia, South Carolina. Among these materials are hundreds of thousands of feet of documentary film with Latin American content, much of it untouched since the time it was “vaulted” by Fox fifty years ago or more. As such, this material represents a largely unmined and potentially rich source of film information on Latin America. This research note will suggest the nature and extent of this collection.