The subtitle of this volume is Dynamics of Latin-American Government and Politics. The main title probably should read: Evolution or Chaos and Then Communism, for its authors frankly reveal that they have written with a very definite purpose: to advocate support in the United States for the Alliance for Progress in the hope that this program may help to avoid chaos and Communism in Latin America.
Though now members of university staffs—Professor Schmitt at the University of Texas and Professor Burks at the University of Michigan—both authors have had years of experience in the State Department of the United States and still have close associates there, so that they have had unusual access to information on Latin America and its international relations. Readers who devote adequate attention to their preface will discover a convenient summary of its contents:
We begin by surveying broadly some basic ideas and attitudes of the Latin Americans toward their internal conditions and international relations. We then proceed to a discussion of social conditions and institutions, and to an outline of economic factors impinging most directly on politics. The heart of our work is a more detailed investigation of interest groups, political parties, and the interaction of these political forces. Most of the discussion is on an across-the-board basis; however, in several places, we have included brief studies of individual countries. Not all countries are covered in this manner, but the largest and most important are treated in each section, along with enough of the others to give full range of significant variations.
The authors frankly admit their preference for Latin America’s moderate leftists, contending (p. 173) that “in Latin America the best hope to avoid violence, bloodshed, and Castro-Communist type of take-over lies in the accession to power of the political parties of the non-Communist left—the social democrats and/or the Christian democrats.” Whether one agrees or not with this and some other contentions and statements, these young scholars have produced a very informative and significant book.
It is not, however, a book that can be fully grasped after one or two hasty perusals. It is primarily a volume for specialists in this field; but it should become a book of reference for responsible citizens. It is a combination of economics, social psychology, and politics and is filled with interpretations, conclusions, and predictions as well as historical facts as the authors comprehend them.
Although a few significant works are missing, the bibliography, on the whole, is useful and fairly adequate. There are no footnote references to sources and the index is by no means exhaustive.