A collection of mostly short excerpts from already published books and articles, designed for collateral reading in a survey course. The ABC countries, Cuba, and Mexico receive considerable attention, others much less. A few selections (e.g. those by Miron Burgin, James R. Scobie, and T. Lynn Smith) are taken from standard monographs which the student should probably read in toto. Many fairly inaccessible articles from back volumes of journals are convenient to have in this form. In general the choice is as good as the instructor would be likely to make himself.
The main question which he will have to answer concerns the usefulness of short snippets of analysis or descriptions as against longer, more fully developed accounts. What is offered here is neither a magnifying glass nor a wide angle camera but a kaleidoscope.
