This volume evidently started out as a set of parallel or patterned studies to follow an analytical outline prepared by Henry A. Landsberger. The result might better be seen as a case or source book on the subject, for few of the papers address themselves systematically to the issues as set forth by the editor. Given the alternatives, I think the book is more useful as it finally turned out than it would have been had the various authors tried systematically to follow the editor’s scheme. While the latter has supplied a well-thought-out and stimulating introduction, our knowledge of these complicated movements is so little developed that detailed cross-cultural comparisons are probably not yet entirely appropriate. At least, data are not sufficiently abundant to warrant the cross-cultural testing of hypotheses.
Landsberger’s introduction sets forth a series of hypotheses about the nature of such movements, based heavily on European eases from earlier periods. Then follow nine chapters devoted to specific movements or sets of movements in eight Latin American countries and a final chapter by Ernest Feder on devices used by society to inhibit the organization of such movements. Among the strongest chapters are those by Landsberger on a Chilean vineyard strike, by Julio Cotler and Felipe Portocarrero on the general development of such movements in Peru, and by Cynthia N. Hewitt on the peasant movements of Pernambuco, Brazil, 1961-1964.
The Landsberger Chilean study is one of the best detailed case studies of a movement that I have seen. It traces the day-by-day events and then reviews the entire movement in terms of the general legal and cultural environment. It also examines the major personalities involved, showing their role in the general course of the movement.
The Cotler-Portocarrero paper sorts out the various kinds of Peruvian efforts at rural organization in accordance with the ecological and sociocultural situation that differentiates the sierra from the coast. The effort, while still highly generalized and based on inadequate data, is still important in that it shows clearly that the differences in labor movements are not merely aligned along the usual rural-urban dichotomy but may be expected to occur in a number of variations depending upon many factors, i.e., stability of residence, dependence as colono labor, general alternative possibilities, local and national restrictions, etc. Most of the specific factors are mentioned in the other papers, but the Cotler-Portocarrero paper contrasts them in terms of the specific variations thus produced within a single country.
Hewitt’s paper on Pernambuco not only shows the effect of ecological and sociocultural variations within the entire area, but also specifies the importance of the variations in the kinds of efforts taken at the national level. While these issues appear in other papers, Hewitt shows how the different kinds of regional and national efforts (those of the Catholic church, Communist local leaders, etc.) competed and were ultimately narrowed down to the increasingly centralized control of the Goulart government.
Unfortunately, some of the other papers occasionally show the naïveté risked by foreign students who choose to study a specific topic without mastering the complex histories, ecologies, and sociocultural situations behind the events studied.
Nevertheless, this is a useful volume, for information and bibliography, as well as for the variety of foci evident in the papers.
