The Other America
Latin America. By Preston E. James. (Cassell. 35s.)
Mosr North. Americans,. observes Professor James, are out `of touch with the conditions which exist in the other countries of the Western Hemisphere ; " and, what is more, they accept certa n caricatures as representative of the Latin American people." II this judgement is Correct, it is doubly true of this country. It ii therefore encouraging that Professor James should have found an English publisher. It may be doubted whether a work of close on i,000 pages will have a strong appeal to the casual reader; and it must be confessed that at times Professor James writes as though he were composing a superior guide-book. Nevertheless, this is a valuable book ; it is illuStrated by an abundance of excellent and useful maps ; from the point of view of geographical analysis it leaves little to be desired.; it has a good deal to say that is fresh and stimulating ; and it is written with an entire absence of parti pris.
Professor James's approach is that of the geographer who seeks to explain the central problmi, as he defines it, of the attempt of the Latin American peoples to establish order among diverse and discordant elements in terms of the relation of land and people. For each country, therefore, he has produced systematic studies of population patterns and land use. In particular his analysis of expanding population frontiers (a theme to which he has recurred elsewhere) is a valuable and original contribution.
The historian, the political scientist and the economist will each have grounds of complaint against Professor James ; but in the elaboration of his fundamental theme, the struggle of the Latin American countries to attain social coherence, he presents a chal- lenge to all three. He challenges much else besides. Pan-American unity he dismisses as " a distinctly artificial concept," and the pcssi- bility, at one time canvassed among certain sections of United States opinion, of forming a self-sufficient commercial bloc in the Western Hemisphere as part of a " vertical " system of international trade, receives short shrift at his hands. Above all, he insists that Latin America is not " just a backward pioneer land "; no simple generali- sations can be used to cover its countries and its peoples. Nor is it El Dorado. The days of a speculative economy are over. The Latin America of today is not the Latin America of fifty or even ten years ago ; and the new industrialisation which is transforming large parts of it is not to be regarded merely as another form of expanding markets for machinery and factory equipment. " In the long run," Professor James concludes, " the new industrialisation will mean higher standards of living in Latin America ; and only by raising standards in the rest of the world can the older industrial centres maintain the levels they have reached."
R. A. HUMPHREYS.
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