Edgardo Mercado Jarrín, 1964

“What is the principal objective of the national census?” the uniformed colonels asked. From groups of primary and secondary school-teachers assembled for orientation purposes in preparation for Peru's first complete census in decades, that question evoked a number of reasoned responses during the weeks prior to census day, Sunday, June 4,1972.

Both the career and personality of Floriano Peixoto, Brazil's socalled “Iron Marshal,” have long been subjects of controversy and conflicting appraisal. In command of the nation from 1891 to 1894, Floriano proved a strong ruler whom few contemporaries regarded.with dispassion or disinterest. During his life time and for some years afterwards, Floriano Peixoto remained the focus of fierce emotions, until the actual man and his achievements were lost in a haze of adulation, condemnation, and facile stereotyping.

In 1966 José Alcina Franch published preliminary descriptions of a remarkable group of 29 Zapotec colonial calendars in the Archives of the Indies. As colonial material on Zapotec calendars has been nearly non-existent, this find is very important. Alcina Franch illustrated some folios and discussed the solar tropical year which Calendar 21 provides. He noted the provisional nature of his findings, and indicated that fuller publication would follow after further study. So far as the writer is aware this more definitive publication has not appeared.

Using techniques and approaches he developed in the course of a long and detailed comparative study of ancient and colonial Mesoamerican chronologies and calendars now nearly completed, the writer will extract further information from the material partially published by Alcina Franch.3 His data, even in their incomplete form, can be made to yield several significant results under such analysis, especially when the Zapotec is related to what is known about Mixtec calendrics. In the early stages the two cultures were nearly undifferentiated, and in ancient and colonial days shared a common tonalpohualli.

The interim years between the two world wars in Peru witnessed a proliferation of original ideas among Peruvian leftists on the relationship between religion and revolutionary change as a result of their efforts to re-examine national realities and bring about a radical change in Peruvian society. Young social thinkers and protesters such as José Carlos Mariátegui, Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre, Luís Valcárcel and others felt that the new Peru must incorporate and synthesize the best elements of Peru's past and present with the best ideas emanating from revolutionary Russia and Mexico. In their quest to construct a program of action for a revolutionary Peru, the generation of the twenties and thirties realized the necessity of going beyond the literary liberalism of the grand master of Peruvian anti-clericalism, Manual González Prada. They endeavored to propose a new, positive program which would neither discard nor neglect such an integral part of national life as the Roman Catholicism of the majority of Peruvians. Even more, they consciously explored ways by which the popular Catholicism of the Peruvian lower classes might be converted into a source of energy for the coming revolution.

Students of the hemispheric system have generally neglected the era of World War I, probably because no major inter-American conferences were held between 1910 and 1923. Yet the disparate reactions to the European conflict represented a crisis of “continental solidarity”; World War I gave rise to a potentially important challenge to United States leadership and helped shape future patterns of hemispheric relations. The war called forth two rival blocs—United States-Brazil and Mexico-Argentina. These blocs differed over more than war policy. Their rivalry reflected an inter-American power struggle, each side invoking “continental solidarity” to gain support from other American nations. The impact of World War I upon the inter-American system and, in particular, the Argentine attempt to convene a Latin American congress need fuller examination.

The United States Military Government built a significant amount of public works in Cuba after the Spanish-American War. Under the direction of the military governor, General Leonard Wood, a large proportion of the insular budget was expended on building roads, bridges, wharves, cleaning and paving streets, purifying water, extinguishing yellow fever, disposing of refuse, and establishing charitable institutions. Of the roughly $55 million expended by the Military Government, over $22 million was spent on varied public works. While the political, diplomatic, economic, legal and educational aspects of the Military Government of Cuba have been treated elsewhere, public works have merely been mentioned. The subject was considered so important by the Military Government and was so vital to Cuba that it warrants special treatment. A description of the conditions in Cuba and the subsequent public works program will indicate the value of the work in the efforts of the Cubans and Americans to build a lasting republic.