This is the third edition of Harry Robinson’s regional geography of Latin America and the first one edited especially for the American market. To review this text for professional geographers, steeped in the British tradition of regional geography texts, it would suffice to label this book “a grimtessence of English regional geography.” To historians and other social scientists, perhaps an additional word of explanation may be in order.
The book exhaustively sets forth every aspect of Latin America’s geography. Its organization alternates between a regionwide treatment of all relevant geographical features and a synthesized treatment of the total landscape of each country.
The first 120 pages are devoted to the discussion of the physical environment of Latin America, its population, resources, economy, and politics. The maps are black and white and rather generalized in detail. No sources are given for climatic or vegetation data. The soil maps are essentially useless and the population map not up to geographical standards. The few photographs are muddy and gray, perhaps because of the printing technique used. The text, on the other hand, is quite adequate for its purpose. It is essentially factual and avoids prolonged discussion of controversial topics like racial problems and land expropriation.
The second section deals systematically with six major regions of Latin America. One could quarrel with the regional groupings (I find it hard to place Paraguay in “Temperate South America”), but the essential data are there. Each region is treated, country by country, reviewing some characteristics of the nation’s history, physical geography, and population as well as a more detailed review of resources, economic development, and transportation. In addition, nearly every country is then subdivided into internal subregions for further description. Mexico, for example, has eleven such subregions. For most countries, a final section summarizes a country’s geography in terms of future prospects. Often quite pertinent, these summaries are almost the only examples of the author’s own ideas and evaluations that come through to the reader. After reading Latin America one wonders whether the author has ever been there.
This is, nevertheless, a strong competitor for use in traditional regional courses on Latin America at the college level. The author states clearly in his preface that he drew upon Preston James’ standard text (which is still superior to Robinson’s in my estimation) and Robert Platt’s earlier text, now quite out of date. No teacher, however, should have to defend adopting this text. Its major drawbacks are its gazetteer-like nature and rather dry style. A touch of immediacy, some lively prose, and a bit of the author himself would all be welcome additions to a subsequent edition.
