Theories on the relationship between religion and social change over the past decade have received significant new empirical inputs from developments in Latin America where religious symbols and institutions have undergone some dramatic alterations under the influence of various modernization processes. Sociologists and anthropologists in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Europe stressed the basically conservative effect of religion on society, and concluded that religious institutions are normally obstacles to change as a result of their traditionalistic orientation and association with established social structures. However, there is a growing uneasiness with the conclusions of these major theorists (Spencer, Malinowski, Durkheim, Marx, Weber) in the light of developments in major religions in some areas of the Third World, particularly Roman Catholicism in Latin America. Popular reporting as well as recent scholarly research have noted significant shifts to the left in parts of the Latin American Church, exemplified by strong episcopal condemnations of social injustice, growing political activism of militant clergy groups, and the emergence of new pastoral and social programs aimed at religious and societal reform. The conclusion in much of this literature is that the Church is undergoing a major transformation and this new phenomenon will provide a powerful stimulus for social change throughout the continent.

In 1949 the Hispanic Foundation of the Library of Congress published A Guide to the Art of Latin America (gala), an annotated bibliography of the literature on Latin America since the Conquest; it covered the years up to 1942, when the Handbook of Latin American Studies (hlas) had begun its annual bibliographies. “It is a startling fact” the Introduction begins, “that no single work deals comprehensively with the history of art in the Latin American countries.”

On 11 September 1973, heavily armed troops attacked the Chilean Presidential Palace in Santiago and toppled the government of Dr. Salvador Allende. The military coup brought an end to Latin America's first democratically-elected Marxist government. Since the September military takeover, the Chilean armed forces have moved with unparalleled harshness to suppress the base of the Allende regime's popular support. The Allende government's efforts toward raising the consumption level of Chile's lower classes had earned his Popular Unity (Unidad Popular—UP) coalition a high degree of political support among the nation's working class and urban migrant population. Because his Socialist-Communist coalition had been actively competing since the 1960s with both the reformist Christian Democratic party (Partido Demócrata Cristiano—PDC) and the ultraradical Leftist Revolutionary Movement (Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria—MIR) for the support of the urban poor, Santiago's migrant shantytowns had an unusually high level of political mobilization. The squatter settlements outside of the capital provided some of the strongest support for Chile's various Marxist parties. Not surprisingly, since the military takeover many of Santiago's squatter communities have been subjected to mass arrests and even executions by the rightist government (Slaughterhouse, 1973; Terror, 1974).

Capitalism is profoundly conditioned by the types of landed property and agrarian classes it confronts in its development, thereby determining fundamental features of the historically specific “social formation” that emerges in a given capitalist country. Such a social formation is not merely split into the constituent classes unique to the capitalist mode of production, but also incorporates, as Marx wrote of Western European capitalism, “strata of society which, though belonging to the antiquated mode of production, continue to exist side by side with it in gradual decay” (1967, vol. 1, p. 765). Or, as Joseph Schumpeter—certainly no Marxist—put it: “Any theory of class structure, in dealing with a given historical period, must include prior class structures among its data; … any theory of classes and class formation must explain the fact that classes coexisting at any given time bear the marks of different centuries on their brow” (1955, p. 111). Every concrete social class, therefore, is also an historical class, not a mere social category or analytic abstraction, and its existence depends on the particular history of the society of which it is a decisive constituent; and in that history, the protracted presence of agrarian elements has often been critical.

What causes a country that has experienced exceptionally high growth rates and living standards to stagnate with only poor and uneven economic advance, especially after it has achieved one of the lowest rates of population growth among the American republics? What forces lead to the intensification of civil violence and conflict among social and occupational groups, encouraging a pattern of military intervention in politics? What impact do patriotism, popular perceptions of leaders' decisions, and a sense of political legitimacy have upon these processes of economic growth and group conflict, and what kinds of leadership can best utilize appeals to constructive nationalism and self-sacrifice in order to promote growth and reduce conflict? Do long periods of frustrated expectations and economic stagnation tend to give citizens patterns of attitudes and behavior that make conflict more likely and growth more difficult?

In 1968, in an article prepared for the American Historical Association Ad Hoc Committee on Quantitative Data (but not published until 1972), I discussed materials, opportunities, problems, and priorities for quantitative research in Latin American colonial history. Specifically, that article included a discussion of the evolution of quantitative studies on colonial Hispanic America, a description of the data available, possible topics for research, opinions on the future of quantification in the field, and an extensive bibliography. The present article is intended to complement that earlier piece—to discuss new factors giving impetus to quantitative history, to list some of the major contributions since 1968 in Latin American colonial history, to revise some old views, and to offer some new suggestions.

One of the most characteristic features of political processes in Latin America is the military seizure of power. The phenomenon is extremely complex and a complete understanding of it, if that is ever reached, will have to take into account a variety of causal factors operating over different periods of time, and interacting in various ways. Where a problem is this complex, one is well advised to approach it through a variety of methods, and this has indeed occurred. Some of the standard methods are: 1. To contrast Latin American experience as a whole with that of other areas-the United States, or Western Europe, or Africa-in order to isolate putative causal factors present in Latin American history and tradition but not found elsewhere; 2. To contrast the experience of different Latin American countries, identifying those more prone to military assumptions of power and trying to determine what socioeconomic or other variables correlate with a high propensity to military coups; 3. To examine changes over time in the incidence of coups, in the history of all of the Latin American countries, of a single country, or of a limited group of them, to try to discover the changes in other dimensions associated with changes in the relative frequency of coups; 4. To examine the motives of military officers who stage coups, either as stated by them or as imputed to them by knowledgeable observers.

This is a response to the recent critique of my book The Mexican Revolution: Federal Expenditure and Social Change Since 1910, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, 1970) by Felix G. Boni and Mitchell A. Seligson. Their factor analysis of my data on poverty suggests, first, that their methodology is more “sensitive” than mine; second, that they have confirmed the thrust of an earlier analysis by Thomas E. Skidmore and Peter H. Smith; and third, that the task of quantitative history is to reduce data of “unwieldy proportions” so that it is subject to greater understanding.

In 1943 there appeared in Mexico City the first book in Spanish on the story of philosophy in Mexico written from a nonscholastic or lay standpoint. Its title is, simply, Historia de la filosofía en México, the author being Samuel Ramos (1897-1959) of Zitácuaro, Michoacán, a philosophy professor at the National University of Mexico. The pioneering work is tentative and modest in content but firm and ambitious in intent. It opens and closes with the same fixed idea in mind: To encourage Mexican thinkers to develop their own philosophy by integrating European philosophy with their national spirit; that is, by nationalizing philosophy itself. Put negatively and more effectively, the whole point of the author's endeavor is to get Mexican intellectuals out of the traditional habit of imitating the philosophies of others by inviting them to think henceforth on their own two feet about the fundamental problems of Mexico herself.

El Seminario de Historia Urbana del Departamento de Investigaciones Históricas del INAH reune a un número variable de investigadores, de especialidades diversas, y a un grupo de estudiantes que reciben formación de investigación en historia urbana. La dirección del Seminario está a cargo de Alejandra Moreno Toscano, investigadora de El Colegio de México. El Seminario sobre Problemas Metodológicos en Historia Urbana de Agosto de 1974 tuvo como propósito principal, confrontar diversas investigaciones en curso, subrayando sus dificultades metodológicas.

In recent studies by historians and political scientists there has been increasing attention paid to the question of executive impact on the budgetary process in Latin America. Wilkie's prize-winning research into the broad outlines of budgetary discretion in Revolutionary Mexico has both stimulated controversy and redoubled efforts to employ budgetary data productively in assessing the impact of who governs upon how people are governed.

En el presente trabajo expondremos la formalización de una hipótesis teórica acerca de las causas del voto de izquierda. El propósito es fundamentalmente rebatir el presupuesto de unicausalidad en la explicación del radicalismo político. Además, las hipótesis formuladas han sido de tipo sustantivo y por tanto, intentamos básicamente ilustrarlas más que generalizar los resultados obtenidos.

This study probes two major questions of urban growth: What are the significant forces that give physical form to the city, and what are the characteristics of human relationships within the city. In answering the first, the study seeks to move beyond the long accepted “plaza orientation” of Hispanic cities to explore hypotheses such as the “pampean urban structure,” the “commercial” city, or the “commercial-bureaucratic” city. The response to the second question attempts to cast further light on the powerful influences of cultural continuity and class structure in determining human associations through family and neighborhood or in occupational and ethnic groupings. In the long run, comparison of the results of this investigation with research on Latin American cities, such as the Caracas or Mexico City projects, or with urban histories of distinct cultural areas such as Australia and the southern United States, may yield more meaningful discussion of urban patterns in the developing world.

The major objectives of this lecture to the Seminar on the Methodological Problems of Urban History were to share some recent advances in the application of computation to the social sciences and to express confidence that the diverse talents, viewpoints, and professional preparation of specialists from several disciplines would permit the formulation of new methods for the synthesis and analysis of available information to solve the problems which confront modern man. To establish a general methodology valid for future investigations in the field demands the creation of a system of information storage and retrieval which would allow investigators to manipulate vast quantities of data. Computers can offer several advantages to social scientists, among them:

Generally speaking, all nations have stereotyped images of other nations. These are frequently inaccurate, yet they form the basis upon which people “feel for or against other nations, interpret their behavior as villainous or good, judge their actions, and judge what they themselves as a nation should do in relation to the others. It follows, of course, that if the images are false, the resulting course of action can hardly ever be adequate.” As noted in an image study by UNESCO: “If the peoples of the world are to learn to live together in peace they need to know one another better. As matters stand, each of us has oversimplified, stereotyped concepts of other peoples. These concepts are usually erroneous, out of date and, all too frequently, negative in character. Clearly this is not material with which to build mutual understanding and tolerance.”

In the spring of 1973, the author conducted a survey of political scientists teaching Latin American politics at American colleges and universities. The intention was to collect and disseminate information on (1) the techniques used in teaching Latin American politics, (2) the books assigned most frequently to students, (3) the identification of political systems most frequently emphasized in the classroom, and (4) the current level of student interest in the politics of Latin America. In addition to these data, information was gathered on those who teach in the area—i.e., how many have done field research, in which countries do they have the most expertise, and which approaches to political development do they find useful in teaching Latin American politics.

Scholars of developing nations recognize the importance of education in the socialization process that takes place in every culture. While some students have examined the impact of education on the masses, fewer, especially for Latin America, have examined the impact of education on the political leadership. Mexico, one of the most frequently studied countries in Latin America, has never been the subject of a study that examines its university system as an institution for both socialization and recruitment of political leaders. Nevertheless, it is an ideal country for investigation because the majority of its high-level office-holders have university degrees from a single institution, the National University of Mexico.

This bibliography is offered as a preliminary guide for students and professionals interested in the texts of the indigenous Nahuatl cultures of Mexico. It is the bibliography I would wish to have were I to begin again my own investigations, which were undertaken with only a general knowledge of Nahuatl culture of the kind available to any curious aficionado of antiquities. While many excellent bibliographies of Nahuatl materials are available (see Note), none have indicated clearly for the uninitiated the primary manuscript sources of the literature or what editions of facsimile, paleography, and translation have been prepared from each. And since much of the critical editing has been piecemeal, locating facsimile or paleography of any specific manuscript may require as many as three different references published over a span of perhaps fifty years. Chasing these references from one book to another in pursuit of sources is time consuming and frustrating for students unfamiliar with the literature, especially for those North Americans whose only chance to work in Mexico is through an inadequate travel grant giving them precious little time. This bibliography offers a convenient organization of references which will facilitate location of any source in whatever form the investigator may desire.