Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Whither Latin America?

Tannenbaum, Frank, Whither Latin America?: An introduction to its economic and social problems (Hardcover), Thomas Y. Crowell Co.: 1934, 206 pages Introduction by James T. Shotwell.
From the book cover...
Dr. Tannenbaum in his extremely meaty book lays down a program for research, rather than states the results of research. One by one he takes up such topics as Population, Industrialism, Finance, Foreign Trade, Transportation, etc, and raises pertinent questions based upon facts, without attempting solution.


My observation: This approach sounds distantly similar to what my father did with his own dissertation on Puerto Rican politics and the New Deal: eschewing analysis in favor of a focus on documentation. Perhaps this is understandable, given that Frank Tannenbaum was his doctoral thesis advisor!

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