Puerto Pico. Ally for Progress

This is Hanson’s third book on Puerto Rico, following Transformation, the Story of Modern Puerto Rico (1955) and Puerto Rico, Land of Wonders (1960). The former head of the geography department of the University of Delaware and present consultant to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico began his interest in and service for Puerto Rico before World War II. He is an able apologist for F. D. R.’s New Deal and Muñoz Marín’s Popular Democratic Party. He is also a clear and interesting writer and he does a good job of outlining Puerto Rico’s struggle to raise standards of living and at the same time strengthen democracy. By holding up Puerto Rico as a showcase of democracy, Hanson does not imply that every colonial or non-industrialized area should follow the same route. Rather, he show’s that “a poor country, emerging from colonialism, could not attain these goals without borrowing many things from socialism and even communism, always excepting the sacrifice of human freedom.” Puerto Rico is indeed a human laboratory, and while the “transformation” may not be as fundamental as Hanson pictures it, nor the “land of wonders” as startling to one who did not know Puerto Rico first hand before 1940, still none may doubt that this Commonwealth is an “ally for progress” within the United States federation and within Latin America. This paperback popularizing Puerto Rico’s progress has its place in U.S. history and government as well as Latin American politics and sociology.