Stimulating observations and surprising new topics expand and enrich this revision, five years after the original publication of Kalman H. Silvert’s work. Chapters 1 and 2 are much the same as before in treating issues of underdevelopment and political change. So also are Chapters 3 and 5, dealing with Guatemalan village and national political life. “Political Leadership and Institutional Weaknesses in Argentina” is new, but not Chapter 14, which reproduces a lengthy speech by General González, illustrative of the thinking in Argentine military circles.
Descriptions of university life in Chapter 7 are new, relying heavily on others’ research. In descending order, space is alloted to universities in Argentina, Chile, and Panama, with minimum reference to those in Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia. Chapters 8, 11, 12, and 13 are but slightly altered, except in their sequence, and comprise sketches on intellectual and social phenomena in Uruguay, Argentina, Chile, and Argentina (again) respectively.
Appearing in the earlier edition, but omitted here are: a) two chapters on the history and social structure of Chile; b) a recital of the author’s frustrations as a visiting professor; and c) a bibliography. Chapter 15, “Hemispheric Relations in the Light of Castro,” is substantially modified. A new Chapter 9, “American Academic Ethics and Social Research Abroad,” is powerfully written, with controlled passion, concerning the consequences to future research arising out of the “Project Camelot” affair. (To this could now be added the as yet unassessed implications of C.I.A. financial support for press, student, labor, and educational organizations.)
Happily the new edition reduces the amount of jargon. The preoccupation of the author with building typologies continues. Por all the reordering of the chapters, the omissions of old and the insertion of new ones, it cannot be said that the book is up-to-date. A rewritten paragraph on the Brazilian military’s role in presidential politics ends at the time of Quadros, thus eliminating Goulart, Branco, and Costa e Silva. In a section on Argentina, there is considerable about Frondizi, but not about Illia or Ongañía. Statistics on Uruguay are no more recent than 1956. And for this effervescent and dynamic continent, to be four or ten years behind the times is to be tardy indeed.
The author’s evaluations are less didactic, more balanced, and hence at once of greater use and force than was the ease in the first edition. A mellowing is notable in the omissions of earlier critical commentaries on the institutions and the people of Latin America. Organizationally, the volume is quite uneven: Argentina gets by far the most attention; several original chapters retained intact are but brief sketches of local mores; other chapters are lengthy discussions in depth of hemisphere-wide problems. However, both kinds contain valuable data and trenchant insights. Arthur P. Whitaker contributes a highly laudatory preface.
