No aspect of Brazilian history has received so stereotyped a treatment as the position of the female and her contribution to the society and economy of the colony. The white donzela and the lady of the ‘big house’ have been depicted as leading a secluded existence, be it in the innermost recesses of their homes or in conventual cells, immune to harsh realities and safe from brash overtures by pretenders. Of the white woman, it was said, during her lifetime she left her home on only three occasions: to be baptized, to be married, and to be buried. The role of the white woman was seen as essentially passive, victim of the demands of an over-bearing and frequently unfaithful older husband to whom she would bear children, or of a martinet of a father. As for the Amerindian woman, whose beauty led the discoverers to initial raptures of platonic appreciation and then sexual overindulgence, she has rarely been depicted in any role other than that of concubine or lover. The black and mulatto woman, slave or free, became a symbol of sensual arousal and sexual fulfillment.

Historians of the age of revolution have often pointed out the contradictions inherent in the preservation of slavery within political structures self-defined as liberal. In Latin America many a nineteenth-century apologist stymied the question by citing the countervailing inviolability of property rights as justification for the continued bondage of slaves to their masters; but what, then, explains the discriminatory treatment of free blacks and mulattoes under nominally liberal regimes? Within free society no such ideological impasse can be identified, yet an analogous, if informal, subordination of the rights of the free colored is amply documented. And the analogy may be extended to include the free poor, regardless of color. At this point matters of race and class overlap, raising important questions about social relations and policies that cannot be answered by reference to formal ideology alone.

This paper sets out to examine the way in which guano was dug and removed from the Chincha islands in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the Peruvian trade was in its most buoyant phase. We shall, in fact, be looking at the physical operation of an entire export sector, up to the point at which the commodity left the shores of Peru for the farms of Western Europe and North America.

The problem of how institutions have affected economic and social development has occupied much of the attention of social scientists. An area now beginning to attract the attention of students of development is the role of interest groups. However, little work has been done on the influence of interest groups during the nineteenth century, a period in which the developmental progress of nations now considered to be economically and socially ‘mature’ began to differ markedly from those still struggling to achieve such maturity. This paper will examine the ways in which interest groups, principally business interest groups, affected the development of Brazil during the nineteenth century.

The hypothesis of Andre Gunder Frank that Latin America's underdevelopment is partly attributable to unequal exchange in economic relations with the advanced world includes the obverse proposition that Latin America's growth has been most substantial in periods such as wartime when links with the metropolitan countries were weakened. The most explicit statement of this view occurs in the book, Latin America: Underdevelopment or Revolution: … the satellites experience their greatest economic development and especially their most classically capitalist industrial development if and when their ties to their metropolis are weakest. This hypothesis is almost diametrically opposed to the generally accepted thesis that development in the underdeveloped countries follows from the greatest degree of contact with and diffusion from the metropolitan developed countries.

The term ‘populism’ has been used to describe many of the popular movements that have appeared in Latin America in recent decades. It is an ‘imprecise term’, to use the words of Professor Skidmore, and the large number of definitions available, indicates how imprecise the term, in fact, has become. Definitions of a universal nature are of limited use, for populism seems to vary according to geographical region: the North American populist differs from the Russian populist, who differs from the African populist, who differs from the Latin American populist, and so on. Even when dealing with the specific area of Latin America there is no consistency. Writers disagree on whether Latin American populists are Left- or Right- Wing, anti- or pro-status quo, reformists or opportunists, rigid or flexible with regard to ideology.

During most of 1942 the United States Department of State attempted to cajole, flatter, or force the Government of Chile to break diplomatic relations with the Axis powers. The reluctance of both Chile and Argentina to join the other Latin American countries in severing relations with Germany, Italy, and Japan soon reached the level of a major foreign policy controversy, and United States officials became incensed at Chile's ‘timidity’ in joining the crusade against fascism. The misunderstanding between them, this analysis will argue, stemmed from the nature of the situation and of the parties involved.

The decade of the 1970s has brought a number of changes to Latin America and in particular to the Latin American political scene. The extensive proliferation of harsh, military-run governments, the increasingly strident cries of nationalism and anti-Americanism, the violent demise of the Marxist- oriented regime of Chile's Salvador Allende and the disappointing performance of the Alliance for Progress programs and its modernizing ideology are now all familiar characteristics of Latin America in the modern era.

‘El hombre más puro de la raza’. This opinion of the Chilean poetess Gabriela Mistral sums up the general feelings of all critics and historians who have studied Martí's life: both as a Cuban patriot and as a sincere human being Martí evokes admiration from all sides. The same cannot be said, however, about his copious writings – twenty-seven volumes in the latest edition (Editorial Nacional de Cuba) — which have led to many differences of interpretation: for some he is the embodiment of Marxist philosophy, while others have shown how little his views have in common with orthodox Socialism. Within Cuba itself, political leaders as diverse in their ideals as Carlos Prío, Fulgencio Batista and Fidel Castro have all claimed to be putting into practice the philosophy of Martí.

Honesty in high public office has always been difficult to enforce. Arguments of executive privilege often block prosecution of presidents who have illicitly enriched themselves; likewise, the divisiveness which accompanies judicial action against a head of state contributes to the reluctance of politicians to initiate such action. When the public official in question is living in exile, the task of the courts is compounded. Prosecution then may depend upon the existence of an extradition treaty in which the alleged crimes are specified and upon the good will of the country where the politician enjoys asylum.