These contrasting pronouncements on Christopher Columbus's transatlantic navigation in 1492 crystalize the extreme division of opinion that characterized the recent quincentennial. The five-hundredth anniversary of Columbus's first voyage inspired among other things a world's fair, several replicas of the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa María, two feature films, and an opera. Commemoration of the event also inspired, in time-honored tradition, the publication of thousands of works dedicated to this major event. Thus although publishing technology is speeding along toward electronic rather than printed images, the fifth centennial of Columbus's voyage has been marked most significantly by the rolling of the presses.

The texts discussed below treat the problem of the relationship between economic and social development and the development of science and technology. The review is not proposed as exhaustive, but concentrates on the manufacturing sector; and it does not deal with specific literature concerning such important topics as agriculture, energy, transportation, and the relationship between science and technology policy and education (however, the first of these is treated in a complementary study [Albuquerque and Nascimento 1978]). Also, the description of science and technology policy measures and of the institutional apparatus that implements them is reduced to a minimum, although bibliographic sources in which more detailed descriptions can be found are indicated. Given these constraints, an attempt has been made to take into account the complexity of the topic and the variety of research that it has inspired. In this sense, contributions from noneconomists, notably sociologists and political scientists, are incorporated; we refrain, however, from any evaluation of the theoretical framework that guides such contributions.

Trade in consumer electronics and household appliances in Bolivia operates mainly from popular marketplaces. Multinational corporations enter these once informal, now enhanced economies. This article analyses the expansion of global brands into urban street markets, together with the local branding of electronics and the advancement of popular traders along transnational commodity chains. I argue that these socio-spatial transitions offer a counterintuitive articulation between the informal and the formal. Looking at specific localities along the commodity chain from East Asia to Chile and Bolivia, one sees not mere formalization of informal economies as often expected nor a rampant informalization as attributed to current economic globalization, but piecemeal formalization of traders as much as a partial informalization of all actors involved.

Years before Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro announced a “thaw” in US-Cuba relations on December 17, 2014 (17D), Cubans were intensifying ties through the transnational circulation of popular culture. To understand Cuba and its diaspora in the twenty-first century, it is essential that we attend to the transnational networks in place before 17D that continue to shape quotidian life for people on and off the island. I begin in Miami, with the “afterlives” of a comic variety show called Sabadazo—popular on the island during the 1990s—to illustrate how what it means to be Cuban, politically and culturally, has shifted away from the exile generation that arrived in the 1960s and 1970s. I complement this analysis with attention to generational tensions within the diaspora and representations of race and sexuality. I then move to the island to examine el paquete (the package), a terabyte’s worth of mostly foreign media updated and distributed across the island weekly. I contend that the economic and cultural impact of el paquete cannot be fully understood without careful consideration of the role of the Cuban diaspora.

Since the mid-1990s, some rightist governments in Latin America have adhered to a strict market orientation while others have shown less attachment to doctrinaire neoliberal policies, a puzzle as rightists are expected to favor minimal government intervention in the economy. In an environment over the past two decades in which market-oriented policies, in general, have grown increasingly unpopular with many Latin Americans, we contend that rightists have less political cover to endorse neoliberal policies. Using panel data for eighteen Latin American countries from 1995 to 2015, we find that, because of the clarity of responsibility that occurs under political mandates and the unpopularity of market reforms, mandate-holding rightist governments will tend to go against their ideological preferences and decrease neoliberal policies. Our findings indicate that as presidential vote margins increase and responsibility for unpopular economic policies becomes clearer, rightist executives will be less willing to support such policies, but only to a point. The results suggest that clarity of responsibility can influence presidential decision-making concerning unpopular policies, especially microeconomic policies, but this influence diminishes as presidents become more electorally secure.

This article examines one formative moment in the making of a working class in Brazil to show how workers refashioned multiple identities in response to interlocking structural transformations from artisanal to factory production, from homogeneous to heterogeneous ethnic communities, and from a male labor force to one that was increasingly female. Anarchist labor organizers contested the myth of the happy artisan and conflated the exploitation of artisans and factory workers to advance class consciousness. Ethnic ties that had initially fostered organization began to hamper class solidarity, now strained under new ideological conflicts, and facilitated effective resistance from employers. As appeals to ethnicity became problematic, appeals to gender emerged: women workers made themselves visible and audible and played an important role in the evolution of the movement. The ways in which they were seen and heard in the streets, however, contrasted with their representations in elite discourse, which sought to use gender to manipulate divisions within the emerging working class.