10 DECEMBER 1921, Page 25

Casual Letters from South America. By William Belmont Parker. (Hispanic

Society of America. 15s. net.)—Mr. Parker spent some months in each of the capitals of South America preparing the biographical dictionaries for the several States which the Hispanic Society is publishing. It was an unusual

errand, which gave Mr. Parker unusual opportunities of studying the cities and their peoples. His volume of letters, written in 1919 and 1920 and describing his impressions of Peru, Chile, Argentina and Paraguay, with a vast number of -photographs, is by- far the most illuminating book on the subject -that we have seen. Mr. Parker's candid, but not unfriendly, criticism will probably give offence to Latin America, but it is obviously honest and deserves attention.