In the twentieth century, increased contact with world affairs and intellectual life has brought Latin America more fully into the general stream of western thought. Rapid population growth and economic development have also brought many changes in society, increasing the tempo of social change and producing such political movements as the Mexican Revolution, Uruguayan Ratllismo, Peruvian Aprismo, and similar revolutionary developments in other countries. A population increase averaging around two per cent annually, and a rise in per capita income more rapid than the average increase in the United States during the years 1869-1952, go far to explain the striking increase in intellectual activity which has occurred. An additional factor of no mean significance, however, has been the immigration of refugee scholars resulting from the Spanish Civil War and World War II.

La Revista azul, una de las revistas literarias más destacadas de México del siglo diecinueve, llegó a ser portavoz del movimiento modernista de la América española septentrional. Este movimiento literario tenía como motivo primordial la renovación de la prosa y la poesía hispánicas que, según los iniciadores del movimiento, habían caído en los excesos de la retórica romántica. En otros términos, los modernistas intentaron introducir una belleza más fina y sutil en las letras españolas. Su impulso inicial se tradujo en un ansia de novedad y de superación en cuanto a la forma de sus composiciones. Con el propósito de incorporar más elementos musicales a su verso, imitaron la versificación francesa e inventaron combinaciones nuevas basadas en las formas españolas tradicionales. Más tarde, resucitaron los moldes antiguos del verso español como el monorrima de Berceo y el pie quebrado y emplearon las técnicas de los gongoristas.

Las Americas, desde el punto de vista económico, ofrecen en estos momentos el espectáculo de una familia cuyos miembros no se guardaran, entre sí, las debidas consideraciones y que, en consecuencia, atravesara una etapa de crisis, sobre todo potencial.

Habría que agregar que a ninguno de los parientes, en trance de contradicción y distanciamiento, puede convenir el quebrantamiento de la unidad e inteligencia familiar. Ni hoy, ni para mañana y, menos que menos, para pasado mañana.

Así las Americas. La América Latina crepita en la sartén de un desarrollo económico insuficiente, errático, aleatorio. Estados Unidos parece estimar que los problemas económicos existentes en el continente se pueden y deben resolver sobre la marcha, a la manera de incidentes casuísticos que no justificaran, en todo caso, más que alteraciones de pulso o dosificación dentro de un cierto tratamiento establecido.

Portuguese, a relative newcomer to most college and university curricula, may possibly have been taught in the United States as early as the close of the seventeenth century in a school belonging to the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue of New York City. It seems likely that the early records kept in Portuguese over several decades were written by those who received their training in the language in New York City. Instruction in Portuguese in college was first offered by a Frenchman, Father Peter Babad of the Society of St. Sulpice. Just when the priest began teaching Portuguese at St. Mary's College in Baltimore, Maryland, is not precisely known, but in 1816 he had a class in it under the auspices of the Department of Classical Languages.

Recent events have once again focussed attention upon the Republic of Bolivia and the efforts of its governing party, the Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario, to grapple with the realities of a chaotic economy and a changing social and political order.

Yet, studies of the development of the Bolivian social revolution have not kept pace with Bolivia's increased prominence in news reports, perhaps because of the inavailability and widely-scattered nature of source materials. Bolivian source materials cannot be considered in a vacuum, however, and a brief survey of recent Bolivian history is in order here.

On November 29, 1947 the United Nations General Assembly, by a vote of 33 in favor, 13 opposed, and 10 abstentions, adopted its fateful resolution recommending the division of Palestine between the Jews and Arabs. In that vote and the debates preceding and following it, the major substantive contributions were made by Latin America. When the partition resolution threatened to flounder on the rocks of United States-Soviet disagreement, Pedro Zuloaga of Venezuela suggested the formation of a subcommittee to resolve these differences. The group did so under the chairmanship of Jorge García Granados of Guatemala. During the entire second Assembly, he and Prof. Enrique Rodriguez Fabregat of Uruguay made the most stirring appeals for Jewish statehood. As president of the Assembly, Brazil's Oswaldo Aranha ruled that the partition recommendation had to be voted on first, before any proposals for delay.

Hispanoamérica es, ante todo, una variada geografía en la cual vive y se afana una comunidad de pueblos de una insoslayable unidad cultural. El convencimiento de que formamos una sola comunidad cultural no es nuevo. Lo tenían los colonizadores, que pasaban de una región a otra de las tierras recién descubiertas sin sentir que trasponían los límites de lo que se llamó, con toda razón, el Nuevo Mundo. Lo tenían los libertadores que iban, como San Martín, de la Argentina a Chile, y de Chile al Perú, llamando en sus proclamas a todos los habitantes “mis paisanos;” o como Bolívar, cruzando ríos y escalando sierras para libertar desde Venezuela hasta Bolivia, porque sentía, como lo declara en su Carta de Jamaica, que “somos un pequeño género humano … No somos indios ni europeos, sino … americanos.”

El año 1808 significa en la historia del mundo español el fin de una época y el comienzo de otra. El brusco cambio lleva consigo distintas implicaciones en las distintas subdivisiones de la Monarquía hispana: y aunque en Puerto Rico no significa la independencia política—contrario a lo que ocurría en los dominios continentales de Su Magestad Católica en América — no por eso cesa de ser también en la Isla límite entre épocas el año de la invasión napoleónica; épocas que podríamos denominar “indiana” y “ultramarina”. Ofrece, pues, cierto interés el cuadro que presenta la segunda población de Puerto Rico, precisamente en la última década del “antiguo régimen”.

Since Perón's ouster in 1955, Argentine political parties have been in a state of flux with traditional groups fragmenting and organizations wholly unknown during the Perón era making their appearance on the political scene. This process of political realignment is still under way and it would be idle to claim as definitive or even as valid for the next few years any listing of political groups. Nevertheless, for those who must rely on U. S. press coverage or comparably limited sources to follow the Argentine political scene, a description of the political party spectrum as it existed in 1957-1958 can serve as a guide to the current political maze and as a bench mark from which to measure subsequent change.

Any history of education in republican Chile, however brief, must of necessity touch first upon the colonial period. Although education, and indeed government, were completely dominated by the Church during the colonial period, in the late eighteenth century Chile grew restless under religious domination and began to free both its educational system and its governmental process from absolute church control.

Prior to the eighteenth century education had been the exclusive prerogative of the church. In the period immediately preceding the Independence the Church and the clergy began to lose some of their unchallenged importance and authority. This loss was reflected in administration and schools. The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 and the not-too-respectful criticism of things religious by Charles III indicated that the Church was no longer directing the government and hence was no longer the dominant element in the educational process.

Voici dix ans que travaillent Pierre et Huguette Chaunu. Huit volumes de leur ceuvre gigantesque ont paru. Les deux derniers sont sous presse. lis en forment comme la conclusion. Avant qu'elle ne soit livrée au public, acceptons d'en faire une, provisoire, quitte á la corriger bientót.

Une remarque sur les auteurs, que nous connaissons bien, ce jeune “matrimonio francés” comme Ton disait á Seville; qui les a vus á l'ceuvre sait la puissance de travail, le sens de l'organisation qui les animent, Tun et l'autre. Tous deux de formation historique, ils se sont abreuvés, comme nous, au lendemain de la guerre, aux sources fécondes des Aúnales. Ils ont été les elements jeunes dans cette revolution de la conception et des méthodes historiques qui a caractérisé l'Ecole frangaise depuis trente ans. Disons-le, au risque de paraítre partial dans notre compte-rendu, nous avons nous aussi applaudi a ce mouvement, nous l'avons suivi, nous y avons participé.

Communists try to stir up hatred in Latin America as well as in other parts of the world. Demagogs in Latin America as elsewhere put fuel on the fires of nationalism whenever they think it will promote their purposes. Governments are still expected to look after national interests rather than the interests of alien peoples. Governments cannot stay in power very long without serving those whom they govern, or at least the potent groups among them. Official benevolence is compulsory benevolence; and compulsory benevolence curtails individual liberty and thus tends to violate a fundamental political principle of Western civilization. The government of the United States has no right or obligation to grant technical and economic aid to foreign countries unless such action is clearly in the national interest.

On April 21, 1958, Peru joined Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and Chile to bring to five the number of Latin American nations possessing integrated steel mills. Whether these countries should engage in heavy industry is beside the point; they are determined to make iron and steel, for they fervently believe that an iron and steel industry is the inevitable harbinger of progress. There is simultaneously a belief that the export of raw materials and the import of manufactured goods implies “colonial” status. Sensitive national pride rebels against the thought that raw materials producers are “hewers of wood and drawers of water” for the industriallyadvanced countires.

The election of Rómulo Betancourt as constitutional President of Venezuela for the 1959-1964 term marks a turning point in that country's political evolution and a high point in the tide of reform now sweeping Latin American toward stable constitutional government. The new president of Venezuela and the party he leads, Acción Democrática, represent the same type of reformist movement as those now flourishing in many other countries of Latin America. As a result, dictatorship in the spring of 1959 is confined to the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, and Paraguay. The situation in Haiti is unclear, but in the other sixteen republics the governments are controlled by parties and leaders which are to a greater or lesser degree trying to get away from the past and seem to have the support of their populations in their efforts. This marks a great change from most of the past history of the Latin American Republics in which the population was ruled by dictatorial cliques dedicated to the preservation of a status quo which meant the perpetuation of poverty and backwardness for most of the Latin Americans.

In April 1958, a very significant Inter-American Music Festival took place in Washington, D. C. Perfectly planned and effectively carried out, the Festival included the best and most representative contemporary serious music from Latin-America. The several concerts that took place, presenting a wide range and varied quality of music, exposed the North American public and critics, for the first time, to a massive dose of the type of music that actually forms the core of the serious musical speech of the countries of the Southern part of our Hemisphere. If it is true that in the last twenty years names such as Chávez or Villa-Lobos — and more recently that of Alberto Ginastera — have become known to the public of the United States and Europe, and that various music Festivals such as those of Caracas and Montevideo have permitted a cross-section of North American music critics to face a larger volume of Latin-American music, it is also true that in the case of the three above mentioned composers — all of them individual advocates of strong personality, though sometimes their best known and heard music belonged to the minor species — a limited and isolated impression of what was happening musically in the rest of Latin America was created.