Every institution rests upon a philosophical base that both supports it and lends a certain character to its functions. As the philosophical support changes, one can expect institutional change to follow. Responding to the philosophical environment, an institution may be modified or, if support is withdrawn, fade into history. Institutions, however, do not react in a uniform fashion. The degree of change depends on the social consequences, as well as upon the possibility of achieving reform without an unacceptable amount of disorder.

Fundamental to an understanding of the complex relationships between race and social class in Latin America is an understanding of the process by which the caste societies of the colonial and early national periods were gradually transformed into the class societies of the twentieth century. During the 1850s a number of South American nations struck down the last vestiges of their slave regimes and the colonial Régimen de castas, legislation designed to divide society into racial castes arranged in a well-defined hierarchy. Among these countries were Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay delayed until later in the century. These developments seem at first glance to have paved the way for the integration of the non-whites as fully-fledged participants in the continent' newly formed class societies, as several authors writing on the Afro-Latin Americans have concluded.

One of the geographical areas most neglected by historians of Latin America is Patagonia. This is particularly true of the second half of the nineteenth century, a period during which the area began to be opened up to European settlement. While it is true that some attention has been given to early European settlement on the one hand, and to the fate of the native Americans during the ‘Conquest of the Desert’ on the other, no one has thus far attempted to outline the nature of the relationships between the two populations. In this article I would like to initiate such an enquiry by focusing upon the relationship between the Welsh settlers in Chubut, who were the first Europen settlers successfully to occupy Argentinian Patagonia, and the nomadic populations which occupied the region at the time of arrival of these settlers. As is the case with most frontier histories, such a study should throw new light upon the ethnohistory of the native American population, especially as it focuses upon their relationship with the Argentine Government. Events such as the ‘Conquest of the Desert‘ are often viewed as a direct confrontation between the central government and the native Americans rather than as a phenomenon which must inevitably involve the frontier settlements as well.

The decade of the 1870s began auspiciously in Europe. Germany, rich with French reparations and enlarged by the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, embarked on an era of prosperity, expanding its railroads and industrial base. Investment in industrial and commercial sectors doubled though many of the newly-founded corporations were extremely speculative. The frenetic good times ended in the spring of 1873: a crisis developed in Austria which quickly enveloped its neighbors. Soon German banks and companies, founded in the era of easy money, collapsed. The crisis leapfrogged the Channel to England where interest rates quickly soared and business activity slowed down.

Chile's seizure of Peru and Bolivia's nitrate regions during the War of the Pacific (1879–83) opened a new and unprecedented era of prosperity for the Chilean economy. During the next forty years the export duty on nitrates fuelled a rapid increase in government revenues, and the entire domestic economy benefited from the development of the industry. Yet the incorporation of the nitrate industry into the national economy also appeared to signal a decline in the dynamism of the Chilean economic elite. Despite the dominant role which Chilean entrepreneurs had played in the development of the national economy prior to the war, 69 per cent of the nitrate industry was in British hands by 1890.

Until the 1870s, Argentina was principally a pastoral nation totally depenlent upon trade with more advanced nations to provide basic necessities. Yet, within a brief span of about thirty years, it became a major producer of livestock products, cereals and flour for export, and of a wide variety of foodstuffs and other consumer goods for internal consumption. Most of this had been achieved by the application of protective tariffs to nascent industrial activities, and by the importation and use of new machinery and technology to process available raw materials. Thus, unlike other Latin American nations which had not yet begun the arduous process of modernization, Argentina had already embarked on a program of import substitution and State-encouraged industrialization in the late nineteenth century.

The historical attachment of the organized labor movement of Chile to revolutionary ideologies has been unique in Latin America. Anarchosyndicalists controlled most labor unions in Santiago and Valparaíso, and the Communists those of the nitrate and coal mining zones during the 1920s. From the late 1930S to the fall of Allende, a majority of Chilean labor unionists manifested their desire for socio-economic change by supporting the Communist and Socialist Parties at the polls and in the streets.

The Comintern's adoption of the popular front strategy in August 1935 marked a new stage in the history of world Communism which lasted until the end of World War II. Communist leaders embarked on this course in the hope of isolating the fascist movement which was then in the ascendant throughout the world. Their strategy was to create coalitions (‘popular fronts’) of progressive groupings on the basis of a reformist program and anti-fascist rhetoric. This conciliatory position towards the rest of the left represented a sharp departure from the policy of previous years when Communists frequently denounced their leftist rivals as ‘ social fascists’.

Since the Alliance for Progress was first established over fifteen years ago, a number of interpretations have been offered for United States agrarian development policy in Latin America. This paper examines two of these interpretations in the light of a detailed study of peasant organization and agrarian reform in Ecuador, a country which received considerable attention from AID from the early 1960s. It has been suggested that AID staff in Latin America are often confused about the role the Agency should play. Indeed, the former Peruvian President, Belaunde, is said to have remarked that ‘AID is very feminine: it never says “no”, but it always says “maybe”‘. It might be added that such prevarication does not seem to have prevented AID from curtailing its more ambitious proposals so as to make them ‘…acceptable to prevailing elites’ However, neither the undoubted conservatism of the Agency, nor its lack of decisiveness are its only notable features. A more penetrating analysis of AID's role in Latin America must begin with the context in which AID operated in specific cases, and consider the legacy of its involvement in particular countries. In this paper it is suggested that AID was instrumental in establishing the outlines of the agrarian development strategy currently being pursued by the Ecuadorian State. As such, its role cannot be considered in inflated conspiratorial terms, nor can AID's activities be interpreted as of only marginal significance in the continent as a whole.

For the past decade and a half, Latin American Catholicism has been a focal point of extraordinary religious change and political activism. Although the first visible signs of religious renewal in the traditionally conservative Latin American church did not appear until the early 1960s, a mere decade later, in 1972, Christians for Socialism had held an international meeting of radical Christians in Santiago, Chile. Today, Latin American bishops and Christian base communities throughout the continent are deeply involved in the struggle to preserve human rights against the encroachments of authoritarian regimes. One of the most controversial aspects of the changing Latin American church has been the emergence of organized movements of Christian radicals who sought to use religion as a base from which to transform society through political action. Sizeable priest movements of the left appeared in such countries as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Peru, where they had a notable impact on national politics. Acting from the premise that Christian faith must be linked to social action to be meaningful, radicalized Christians joined a dialogue with Marxism, denounced social injustices, provided leadership to politically marginal groups and struggled to change the very nature of the Latin American Catholic Church. The rationale and justification of such action was provided in the collection of writings known as the theology of liberation.