At the 1970 sessions on Rumanian language and culture sponsored by the University of Bucharest there was a continuing stress on the Latin ties which make Rumania a Latin island in a Slavic sea. The Latin Americanist was bound to wonder if this “Latinity” was leading to a new interest in Latin America, for which Rumania would have more affinity than any other East European country. While there is in Rumania nothing like the Latin American Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, a search through a bookstore showed that the quest was not in vain. Government-owned stores are not characterized by the enthusiasm of the sales clerks, and an inquiry about Latin America drew a surly negative. It was therefore with a sense of triumph over the apparatchiks that this Latin Americanist, after a personal inspection of the shelves, returned to the counter with several new books and expressed regret that the sales force was not familiar with its own stock.
The first volume read was this book about Mexico in a series of country studies “Pe harta lumii.” Two questions immediately suggest themselves. The first concerns the honesty of the work. Soviet studies of Latin America are some what less than honest because of their ideological obfuscation; an example is Meksika. Politika, Ekonomika, Kultura, reviewed in the HAHR, 49:4 (November 1969), 770-771. The reader feared the worst, since Scînteia is as scurrilous a paper as Pravda, and he wondered if the Party line would carry over into historiography. It was a relief to find that the Rumanian book on Mexico is much less doctrinaire than the Russian volume. The Party line is there, and it does distort the truth, as when the author suggests that the Mexican economy has failed to expand because of U.S. influence, when just the opposite is true. In general, however, the author tells the story straight and in a professional way.
The second and broader question concerns the general merit of the book, and here the author scores high marks. It is one of the best general introductions to Mexico in any language. The author obviously knows the country from one end to the other, and he clearly is familiar with the scholarly literature on the subject. The introductory section, “Mexican Mozaic,” gives a factual description of the various areas of Mexico. It is interesting, although disorganized in places; for example, the name Guanajuato is discussed on two successive pages (39, 40), and two different etymologies are given. There are a few slips: Puebla is known for its Talavera, not Calavera tiles. The second section takes the history of Mexico from pre-Colombian times down to the present. The remaining sections deal with sociology, economics, political institutions, education and culture. The book reverts to the Communist pattern in the epilog: after a less than generous account of U.S.-Mexican relations, the author ends with a purple passage about the growing friendship between Mexico and Rumania. He reminds us of the visits of Rumanian vice-president of the Council of Ministers, Gheorghe Rădulescu, to Mexico in 1968, and of Foreign Minister Corneliu Mănescu later the same year. Rut from there to the assertion that there is throughout Mexico a lively interest in Rumania is an excursion into wishful thinking; I do not recall a single Mexican expressing an interest in Rumania.
The bibliography is slightly weighted in favor of pro-Communist writers, such as A. Rassois Batalla, although rightist Catholics such as José Vasconcelos are there too, as are the standard U.S. items. With the required Marxist obeisance to the fathers of the Church, the bibliography opens with items from Karl Marx (Intervention in Mexico) and V. I. Lenin (What the capitalists and the proletariat understand by shame). Only a few Soviet Latin Americanists are quoted, such as M. S. Alperovich. It is a pity that such an interesting and useful book does not have an index. The preparation of an index would have eradicated misprints such as the variants on the name Madero: Medero (p. 49) and Modero (p. 50).
