One of the most characteristic and picturesque features of Latin American commercial activity is the market, “an organized public gathering of buyers and sellers of commodities meeting at an appointed place at regular intervals” (Hodder 1965: 57). These markets are held in open market squares or plazas, in streets and open spaces, at roads junctions, and in public, municipal market buildings. Locally, markets are referred to by such names as ferias, plazas, or mercados in Spanish-speaking Latin America, feiras in Brazil, tianguis in Indian areas of central Mexico, catus in some Quechua-speaking Andean areas, and marchés in French-speaking countries. Generally found in medium to large nucleated settlements, markets are also encountered in very small hamlets, particularly those located at nodal points in communication networks. A settlement may have one or more different market locations within the built-up area, or on the outskirts of the settlement. Most larger towns and cities have several separate markets which specialize in different commodities, or serve different neighborhoods or social groups. Places with one or more markets are generally referred to as market centers.

Academic teaching and research on subjects related to Latin America developed in Israel not as the result of multi-faceted and premeditated planning but as a consequence of general historical events as well as of local and partial initiatives. In order to understand the present position of research and teaching activities on these subjects, it is indispensable to bear in mind the major developments which occurred in Israel in two main areas: (a) the emergence of academic life and institutions during Israel's 25 years of exstence; (b) the development of the diplomatic relations and economic and technological ties between the State of Israel and Latin American countries. Research and academic teaching evolved directly from these two determining factors.

Urban insurgency has been used with increasing frequency and effectiveness in many areas of the developed and less developed world during the past decade. In Latin America, this trend toward expanded urban guerrilla warfare has been most pronounced in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. In the three nations, revolutionary forces have rejected completely the concept of the primacy of guerrilla activities based in the countryside, a theory adapted to the Latin American environment by Cuba's Ernesto “Che” Guevara and French Marxist Régis Debray. Instead, attention has been focused on organizing and developing guerrilla and terrorist operations in such population centers as Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Montevideo, Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Córdoba. (For a discussion of factors leading to the development of urban insurgency in Latin America see “The Urban Guerrilla in Latin America: A Select Bibliography,” LARR: 9: 1).