The Study of Political Leadership is Important for an Understanding of any society. Political leaders participate in, or influence the making of, decisions that allocate resources within and among social units. These acts of choice constitute the major component of the governing process. It seems obvious, then, that an understanding of any social order rests fundamentally on a systematic grasp of the background attributes, careers, value and issue orientations, behaviors and environmental context of political leaders.

THE GOVERNMENTS OF LATIN AMERICA, HAVING BEEN PREOCCUPIED MAINLY with industrialization since World War II, began to give more attention to social development during the Sixties. Priorities of development policy, stressed under the Alliance for Progress, now include education and health; improvements in both areas are regarded as means of raising output as well as furthering social progress. Analyses of Latin America's human resources, however, have concentrated mainly on manpower requirements and corresponding educational needs. They have been supported by evidence of high returns to investment in education,2 while studies of the region's health conditions have yielded no comparable evidence in support of health sector investments. Health improvements are evident, but economic analysis has not yet shown to what extent they are attributable to health expenditures alone. Poor health is closely associated with poverty, low education, and rural residence, but causal relationships among these and other variables remain largely unexplored.

IN THIS WORK WE PRESENT THE FIRST CONCLUSIONS OF AN ONGOING INvestigation concerning the process of urbanization in the Spanish colonies in America, at a particular moment in their history. We cover a period of approximately 50 years, between the decades of 1570-80 and that which ends in 1630.

Util y amena ha sido la lectura del trabajo de Jorge E. Hardoy y Carmen Aranovich, “Escalas y funciones urbanas de América Hispánica hacia 1600, Un ensayo metodológico.” Un valioso y sugestivo intento de mensurar el origen de la historia urbana del continente, por lo menos en cuanto a una caracterización de magnitudes y un delineamiento de las más importantes funciones del fenómeno urbano en América.

Approximately five years have now elapsed since the establishment of Latin American studies in British universities on an institutional basis and, since the next quinquennium begins in less than two years' time, in 1972, and universities in Britain are already preparing their plans for that period, this may be an appropriate moment for taking stock of developments to date, and for speculating about the future. But in order to appreciate the current situation, it would be useful to set the subject in its historical context and to consider first the state of Latin American studies in Britain before the establishment of Centres and Institutes, and the reasons why they came into being.