Except for some well-known concepts such as Gundar Frank’s development of under¬development the actual prob¬lems of development and poli¬tical change in Latin America are still relatively unfamiliar on this side of the world. For this reason the author’s stated aim of encouraging ‘scholarly South-South exchange’ is to be applauded as well as an Indian publisher’s willingness to assist. Unfortunately this collection of essays by a socio¬logist from Mexico is inade¬quate. Not only does it suffer from the usual shortcomings of such collections, that is, unevenness of quality, datedness and repetitiveness of much of the material, but to this is added a pedestrian approach. While there is much which should be thought provoking in these essays, most such pro¬vocation will only come to the reader if he reads other material to be found elsewhere on Latin America, such as journals like Latin American Perspectives or the work of Cardoso and Petras. Even with some basic background on Latin America the reader will find most of the offerings in this volume thin gruel in-deed.
Nov-Dec 1981, volume 6, No 3