Professors Walter Markov and Manfred Kossok of the Karl-Marx-University of Leipzig are the most articulate Latin Americanists of Eastern Germany. In 1960 they founded the Arbeitskreis Lateinamerika, also called the Centro de Estudios Latino-Americanos. As can be expected they are devoted Marxists and all their writings— as this whole book—are annoyingly dogmatic. Yet this newest book about Latin America from the German Democratic Republic should be read.
The study contains the following sections: Kossok and Markov, “ ‘Las Indias no eran Colonias?’ Background for a Colonial Apology” ; M. S. Al’perovič, “Hidalgo and the Peoples’ Revolt in Mexico” ; Carlos M. Rama, “José Pedro Varela and the Beginnings of a National Sociology in Uruguay”; Hernán Ramírez Necochea, “England’s Economic Domination of Chile (1810-1914)”; Ricardo M. Ortíz, “Main Features of the Economic Development of Argentina since the First World War”; Friedrich Katz, “Mexico and Petroleum Politics during the Years 1876 to 1913”; Manfred Kossok, “ ‘Special Assignment South America,’ The German Latin American Policy of 1938 to 1942”; Alejandro Lipschutz, “Indigenismo and the Americas’ Cultural Renaissance.”
Each page of every article is enough for another page of refutation. Let me cite a humorous example. The first chapter gives a stern criticism of the recent trend to re-evaluate the colonial period and show its many merits (such as Lewis Hanke [not mentioned by the authors] has done). Kossok and Markov say (p. 25) that, for example, the American Jesuits led by Father J. F. Bannon have achieved a monolithic intellectual domination of U. S. Latin Americanists. Now I think we all appreciate and respect our able and charming friend, Bannon, but we obviously do not think he is such a devil and powerhouse. The best chapter to this reviewer is Kossok’s “Special Assignment South America” as he used valuable sources. Also of great interest are the footnotes of these writers since they reflect their prejudices and their lack of the most moderate knowledge of Western sources. But with all this criticism one notices beneath the veneer of dogmatism a real ability and intellectual curiosity and a shrewd evaluation of Latin America.
