The appearance of this work in a second edition is further evidence that the American regional text is an endangered species, victimized by declining interest in the relevant courses. The field has been left largely to British geographers, such as Odell and Preston, for whom the regional survey method is a venerable tradition. Here, however, the authors eschew the conventional country-by-country survey to focus on broad themes or issues—illustrated by detailed examples—that have profoundly affected Latin American land and life; the “facts” are left to standard texts to which readers are referred, and with which familiarity is assumed. Atypically, also, the contributions of each author are clearly identified. A joint introduction is followed by Preston’s treatment of social geography and Odell’s analysis of spatial patterns of economic activity. Although roughly connected through cross-referencing and commonality of some issues, the two parts invite individual review.
Social geography, occasionally referred to here as “spatial ecology,” is an amalgam of cultural and human geography, with particular concern for social dynamics and the distributional and landscape expression of social organization. Preston’s first chapter, “Human Groups and Their Landscapes,” describes the predominant “sociocultural” groups, which are in fact racial. In “Types of Rural Environment” a typology of rural settlement forms is offered (freehold community, family farm, estate, and so forth), and tangentially the point is made that modern technology designed to improve the quality of rural life (roads, the “Green Revolution”) may have precisely the opposite effect. “Characteristics of Urban Environments” again offers a classification of urban places based upon size, and various aspects of urban structure and morphology are discussed. In “Land Reform and Colonization,” the longest and best chapter in this section, the general issues are examined and illuminated in six case studies (Bolivia, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Chile). The last chapter, “Human Mobility: Migration and its Consequences,” emphasizes the massive movement to Latin American cities. Migration to agricultural frontiers is treated in the preceding chapter, but floating rural migrant labor, which may account for one-third of Latin America’s rural poor, is not mentioned.
Odell’s “Major Themes in the Economic Geography of Latin America” was approached with some apprehension, since modern economic geography is modishly theoretical, much given to statistical mystification. This is not the case here. Odell begins with a capsule history of the growth of Latin American economic structure, which is a model of succinct synthesis. Next, “Economic Geography of the Exploitive Economy” deals with developments from 1850 until the entrance of large-scale foreign investment, with central themes illustrated by examples (the pampas, the United Fruit Company, Cuban sugar production, Chilean nitrates, petroleum). “Regional Imbalance in Economic Development” considers an important but neglected issue in classical economic development theory. In “Emerging Themes: Toward a New Economic Geography of Latin America,” several trends are predicted, with relevant assumptions and evidence (e.g., emergence of new growth centers such as Ciudad Guayana). The last chapter—“Economic Geography of Latin American Cooperation and Integration”—surveys various attempts at economic/political linkage (though CARIFTA is not mentioned) with a realistic appraisal of both the advantages and obstacles to closer ties. Because Odell also proceeds from large generalizations to highly specific examples, similar problems emerge, though it would appear that elements of the “spatial economy” lend themselves more readily to such treatment. More troublesome by far is the absence of a systematic assessment of Latin America’s basic natural resources.
In general, the writing is competent, and bibliographies terminating each chapter are made more useful by annotation. There are a few eyebrow-raisers: “Mexico may be 60 percent Indian” (p. 20); or, that Puerto Rico and Jamaica have many cultural similarities (p. 238). Inevitably, also, much material remains dated in spite of revision. The organizational framework imposes additional difficulties, including some repetition and area coverage that is spotty. The Caribbean, for example, is barely mentioned by Preston, and treated peripherally by Odell, primarily in a discussion of Puerto Rican economic development.
Obviously textbooks are acutely—and perhaps unfairly—vulnerable to criticism from individual reader’s tastes and biases. The conventionally minded, weaned on regional compendiums such as Preston James’s landmark Latin America or R. West and J. Augelli’s excellent Middle America: Its Lands and Peoples, will be dismayed. Scholars with specialized knowledge will easily detect research themes that have been slighted. Almost anyone will think of examples that might better have suited the authors’ purposes. Yet within the scope that the authors set for themselves, and the constraints this imposes, they have produced a useful and interesting survey of major Latin American social and economic processes within the geographical context.
