This is a collection of thirteen papers stemming from a joint Cornell University—Columbia University conference held in 1965. Mörner is well known for his concern with the general topic, and his brief introductory notes and contributed essay (on research on the topic during the national period) are apt. He notes that “. . . the contributions contained in this volume present only a very fragmentary picture of the evolution of society and socioracial relationships in the immensely vast and heterogenous region of Latin America.”
Part I, “The Abolition of Slavery and Its Aftermath.” (Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán on Mexico, Carlos Rama on Uruguay, and Richard Graham on Brazil) is strong, and the three essays fit well together: the major theme is that while slavery tended to disappear for common economic reasons, the subsequent integration of the Negro into the national society depended on local factors. The results varied, with high integration in Mexico and Peru, and isolation in Brazil.
Part II, “Immigration, Stratification, and Race Relations,” is also generally strong. All papers deal with the 19th Century: Mario C. Vázquez on Peru, Harry Hoetink on the Dominican Republic, and Florestan Fernandes on São Paulo, carrying that story up to the middle of the 20th century. These papers detail considerably more variation, with the Fernandes paper serving as a good continuation of Graham’s initial paper on Brazil. The Vázquez paper tries to cover a great deal of ground in too little space, and therefore raises questions as to how solid may be some of the basic data. Hoetink continues his thesis of the two varieties of Caribbean race relations.
Part III is less satisfactory. Moisés Gonzáles Navarro discusses mestizaje in the national period without much analysis of conditions; Manning Nash argues that 19th century laissez faire economic liberalism was destructive to the Indian social fabric of Middle America, but adduces little evidence to support the case; François Chevalier gives a good account of the initiation of Peruvian governmental Indianist policy in the 1920s.
Part IV consists of four essays reviewing research and pointing up areas of future investigation. The papers are generally good, especially because they represent very different points of view. Mörner’s own is an argument to seek further work in certain areas. Charles Anderson reviews a narrowly defined range of United States political scientists’ use of the concepts of race and class, and finds them, on the whole, theoretically thin. Octavio Ianni gives a thorough and useful analysis of Brazilian studies, from a Marxist sociology-of-knowledge standpoint. Hilgard O’Reilly Sternberg finishes up with “A Geographer’s View of Race and Class in Latin America.”
In general, the papers are reasonably sophisticated, although their brevity clearly limits their utility. The orientation is definitely towards understanding the role of race rather than of class. Class is brought in as an independent variable when it is brought in at all (mainly in Parts I and II). Nash’s and Chevalier’s papers are rather divergent from the general topic, and the subject matter of neither receives much support elsewhere in the volume. The book will be a useful adjunct to courses dealing with related topics, and can serve as an appetite-whetter for those who may feel that the issue of understanding the role of race in Latin America is not a live topic. The volume’s title is unfortunate; it is not as comprehensive as is suggested.
