TURNING THE SPOTLIGHT ON SOUTH AMERICA
Rodell, Katherine
Turning The Spotlight On South America Three Reports On A Troubled Continent THE ARGENTINE RIDDLE, by Felix J. Weil. John Day Co. $3.50. LATIN AMERICA IN THE FUTURE WORLD, by George Soule, David...
...LATIN AMERICA IN THE FUTURE WORLD, a product of the National Planning Association, is a book which should have been so much better that it is hard to appraise it for what it is...
...This remains to be seen," say the learned gentlemen...
...To be sure, much of the essential data is still shrouded in war censorship, and perhaps it is still too early to assess the full impact of U. S. war-buying in intensifying one-crop economies in Latin states...
...Reviewed by Katherine Rodell THE ARGENTINE RIDDLE should be required reading for President Roosevelt, all members of the State Department, and all U. S. journalists—as well as for anyone who, baffled by the inconsistencies of our policy and the befuddlement of most of our reporters, really wants to understand what has been going on in Argentina...
...I do not see what it profits anyone to know about "Central Banking and Monetary Management in Latin...
...On the whole, the book is an earnest and good-hearted and high-minded failure...
...and there is a ¦wealth of material for the student in the various tables and appendices...
...Weil does not pull any punches, particularly when referring to other writers who have failed to understand the nature of the Argentine crisis...
...The second section discusses the economic dislocations of the war, and wartime buying and expansion programs, and it is here that the inadequacies of the book begin to be felt...
...McGraw-Hill...
...Furthermore, the pages on land reform in this section are, in the case of Argentina, squarely in opposition to Dr...
...ECONOMIC PROBLEMS OF LATIN AMERICA, edited by Seymour E. Harris...
...Because of the weakness of the second section, the third section, "Recommended Policies and Implementation," suffers...
...Nor do I see that chapters on "Economic Problems of the Latin American Republics" and "War and Postwar Agricultural Problems of Latin America" which omit to mention such basic considerations as landownership and tenantry can have any real value except as exercises in economic gobbledegook...
...Can Latin America compete with the East Indies plantation system and cheap labor supply in the postwar world...
...It is, for the most part, a collection of generalities—glittering or hoary or vague—which contribute not a whit to defining or understanding or attempting to solve the problems to which they polysyllabically refer...
...It is a provocative and stimulating book, and Dr...
...But the army leaders recognize that Argentina needs—for military reasons, if no other—a diversified economy to maintain her position as the hitherto leading South American nation...
...In this book, too, there is the divorcement of political and economic factors—although these gentlemen go even further than do the Messrs...
...America," or about "Fiscal Policy and the Budget" and yet to ignore the political realities which underlie and control those policies...
...It seems to me impossible to discuss any country or group of countries on the sole basis of economic facts, leaving out the political realities and implications, and for that reason the whole last part of the book has a Never-Never quality, despite its undoubted thoughtfulness and its wistful wish to be helpful...
...The style is undistinguished, but clear and readable...
...Far-rar and Rinehart...
...Seymour Harris and his distinguished associates have wasted a great deal of undoubtedly valuable time—as well as paper...
...The first section, which deals with landownership, labor, health, nutrition, housing, and sanitation, etc., is to my mind the best...
...Weil's statistics are far more impressive...
...In simple terms, but backed by a devastating battery of references and statistics, Dr...
...AS for Economic Problems of Latin America, it is my opinion that Mr...
...Weil shows that "Argentina is now at the crossroads, with a battle royal raging between the new industrialization and the old vested agrarian interests" ; that the landowners backed the Ramirez revolt because they felt their dominance endangered...
...Still, this is the most crucial part of the Latin American problem today: How much of the land now given to rubber or other war-demanded products can be profitably employed in the same way after the war...
...How mufch of expanded tin and nitrate and copper production will be a drug on the market when V-day comes...
...that the military government is now in a. quandary, because "the landed gentry expects it to throttle industry...
...Soule, Efron, and Ness—for one could read this entire volume and have no idea that (a) there was a land problem in Latin America, or that (b) that problem had had rather undemocratic political as well as economic implications...
...and he indicates how the United States, by helping Argentine industrial expansion can aid in the establishment of true democracy (by breaking the feudal landowners' political stranglehold) and also establish the firm trade relations which must underlie any permanent friendship between our two countries...
...Here, with charts and tables and graphs to supplement the text, is spelled out the abysmal poverty of the Latin American masses...
...LATIN AMERICA IN THE FUTURE WORLD, by George Soule, David Efron, and Norman T. Ness...
...and Dr...
Vol. 9 • April 1945 • No. 15
