Readings In Latin American History, Volume I: to 1810

Hanke, Lewis, Readings In Latin American History, Volume I: to 1810, New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1966.

Lewis Hanke (1905–1993) was a preeminent U.S. historian of colonial Latin America, and is best known for his writings on the Spanish conquest of Latin America. Hanke, along with two others, Irving A. Leonard and John T. Lanning, presented a revisionist narrative of colonial history that focused on the role of Bartolomé de las Casas, who famously advocated for the rights of Native Americans, and searched for just resolutions to the tensions between the conquistadores and the natives during the colonial period of Spanish rule. Hanke's writings documented Las Casas' work as a political activist, historian, political theorist, and anthropologist. His scholarship also uncovered evidence to support Hanke’s claim that Las Casas did not act as the sole voice of conscience during the colonial era, but actually constituted the head of what was a larger reform movement by a number of Spanish colonists to prevent "the destruction of the Indies.”[1] His historiography was similar to the one of his contemporary Jaime Eyzaguirre.[2]

Latin America: A Historical Reader

Hanke, Lewis, Latin America: A Historical Reader, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1974.

See also Instructor’s Manual to accompany 'Latin America: A Historical Reader'.

An Interview with Lewis Hanke in The Hispanic American Historical Review © 1988.

History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations. Vol. 2: The Modern Age (1st & 2nd Editions)

Hanke, Lewis, History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations. Vol. 2: The Modern Age, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1967.

Hanke, Lewis, History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations. Vol. 2: The Modern Age, Second Edition, United States: Little, Brown & Co., 1973.

Reviewed in Academy of American Franciscan History 1968.

Table of Contents:

Section I What Kind of Revolution Occurred in Latin America Between 1810 and 1830?

A. General
1. Only the Beginnings of a Basic Transformation Took Place, by Charles C. Griffin
B. Contemporary Descriptions of Conditions
2. Reports by British and United States Officials: (a) Caesar A. Rodney on Argentina (1818); (b) Charles Milner Rickettes on Peru (1826); (c) Joel Roberts Poinsett on Mexico (1829)
C. Special Topics
3. Education in Colombia, by David Bushnell
4. The Ethnic Factor, by Magnus Morner
D. The End of the Revolutionary Period
5. The Great Landed Estates Remained, by R.A. Humphreys
6. Further Reflections, by Charles C. Griffin
E. Brazil
7. The Uniqueness of Brazil, by C.H. Haring

Section II Juan Manuel de Rosas: Bloody Tyrant, or Founder of Argentine Unity and Defender of the Nation’s Independence?

A. Contemporary Attitudes
1. Foreign Estimates of Rosas, by William Spence Robertson
2. The Slaughter House, by Esteban Echevarria
B. Nineteenth Century Historical Controversy
3. The Tyranny of Rosas, by Jose Manuel Estrada
4. The “Middle Ages” of Argentine History, by Ernesto Quesada
C. Recent Interpretations
5. Rosas Continued the Authoritarian Colonial Tradition, by Jose Luis Romero
6. Rosas Assured the Continued Prosperity of the Pastoral Industries, by Miron Burgin
D. Revisionists and Revision
7. Discussions on Rosas Reflect the Swirling Currents of Argentine Life, by Clifton B. Kroeber
8. Rosas Still Lives in the Hearts of Some Argentines!

Section III Economic Entrepreneurs in the Mid Nineteenth Century

A. Colombia
1. There Was No Lack of Individual Enterprise, by Frank Safford
B. Mexico
2. The Spirit of Enterprise in Yucatan, by Howard F. Cline
C. Chile
3. Economic Development Before the War of the Pacific, by Frederick B. Pike
4. The Dawn of Manufacturing in Chile, by J. Fred Rippy & Jack Pfeiffer
D. Peru
5. Henry Meiggs, Yankee Pizarro, by J. Fred Rippy

Section IV Negro Slavery in Brazil

A. How Foreigners Viewed Negro Slavery
1. Slaves in Brazil Have More Tolerable Lives Than Those in Other Countries, by Henry Koster
2. “A Horrid Traffic”: Life on a Slave Ship, by Robert Walsh
3. A British Consular Report on Slavery in Northern Brazil (1831), by Robert Hesketh
4. Slavery is Doomed in Brazil, by D.P. Kidder & J.C. Fletcher
5. Slavery is a Curse for Bothe Negroes and Whites, by Herbert H. Smith
B. Analysis by a Historian
6. Patterns of Living in the Vassouras Plantation, by Stanley J. Stein
C. Recent Interpretations
7. Why Slavery Was Abolished, by Emilia Viotti da Costa
8. The Brazilian Slave, by Robert Conrad

Section V The Chilean Revolution of 1891: The Beginning of National Frustration

A. Background of the Revolution
1. An Era of Exuberant Confidence, by Frederick B. Pike
B. Interpretations of Historians Today
2. Balmaceda’s Economic Ideas Differed Fundamentally from Those of the Bankers, Businessmen, and Landowners, by Hernan Ramirez Necochea
3. A Purely Economic Interpretation Is Dangerous, by Harold Blakemore

Section VI Porfirio Diaz, Dictator of Mexico

A. Contemporary Interpretations
1. President Diaz: Hero of the Americas, by James Creelman
2. The Diaz System, by John Kenneth Turner
B. Contemporary Documents
3. Mexico Needs Foreign Capital (1897), by “El Economista Mexicano”
4. A Catholic Conference Discusses Agrarian Problems (1904), by Trinidad Sánchez Santos
5. Program of the Liberal Party (1906)
6. Mexican Workers Do Not Go To The United States! (1910), by “El Imparcial”
C. Later Views
7. The Diaz Regime as Background for the Revolution, by Charles C. Cumberland
8. The Porfiriato: Legend and Reality, by Daniel Cosio Villegas

Section VII The Great Debate: Cultural Nationalism, Anti-Americanism, and the Idea of Historical Destiny in Spanish America

A. General
1. Cultural Nationalism: The Dreams of Spanish-American Intellectuals, by Cesar Graña
2. The Hispano-American’s World, by Waldo Frank
B. Ariel: Source and Symbol of Misunderstanding
3. Ariel Embodies the Mastery of Reason and of Sentiment Over the Baser Impulses of Unreason, by Jose Enrique Rodo
4. Rodo Still Touches Chords of Sympathy and Desire in Latin America, by Kalman H. Silvert
5. The Two Americas Are Far Apart, by Richard M. Morse
C. A Case Study: Xenophobia in Mexico
6. The Roots of Nationalism, by Frederick C. Turner

Section VIII Imperialism, Intervention, and Communism in the Caribbean

A. General
1. The United States is Honor Bound to Maintain Law and Order in South America, by George W. Crichfield
2. United States Policy Was Not Inspired by Sinister or Sordid Motives, by Dana G. Munro
3.”Free Elections” Are Not the Answer, by Theodore Paul Wright, Jr.
B. The Coming of Castro
4. The Castro Revolution Was the Culmination of a Long Series of Thwarted Revolutions, by Hugh Thomas
C. The Dominican Republic During and After Trujillo
5. The High Price of Stability, by Raymond H. Pulley
6 The Issue of Communism Divides Rather Than Unites the Members of the Inter-American System, by Gordon Connell-Smith

Section IX The Age of Getulio Vargas in Brazil (1930 – 1954)

A. The Early Years
1. Brazil’s Political and Economic Condition When Vargas Seized Power, by Horace B. Davis
2. Brazil Made Tremendous Advances, by Karl Loewenstein
3. Foreign Influences at the Outbreak of World War II, by Bailey W. Diffie
B. The Return of Vargas
4. The Election of 1950, by John W. F. Dulles
5. Peron and Vargas in 1951, by George Pendle
6. Crisis and Corruption, by Jose Maria Bello
7. Suicide Note, by Getulio Vargas

Section X Historians and Historical Controversies

A. The Historian’s Task
1. The Mexican Idea of History, by Luis Villoro
2. The Historian Must Be Free, by France V. Scholes
3. History Belongs to Our Own Generation, by Jose Honorio Rodrigues
B. The Soviet Image of Latin America
4. Contemporary Soviet Research on Latin America, buy J. Gregory Oswald
C. Dialogue on How to Teach Latin American History in the United States
5. Unthinkable Thoughts, by Lewis Hanke
6. Social Injustice: The Constant in Latin American History (1492 - ), by Gunnar Mendoza

History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations. Vol. I: The Colonial Experience (1st & 2nd Editions)

Hanke, Lewis, History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations. Vol. I: The Colonial Experience, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1967.

Hanke, Lewis, History of Latin American Civilization: Sources and Interpretations. Vol. I: The Colonial Experience, Second Edition, United States: Little, Brown & Co., 1973.

Reviewed in Academy of American Franciscan History 1968.

The contents of this volume and of its companion to follow, on the period of 1810 to the present, have been drawn from the rich store of material that has appeared in widely scattered publications. The selections from the original sources illustrate the freshness and unique character of such documents. The later writers approach their subjects from varied points of view. Many are historians, but the insights and interpretations of anthropologists, geographers, librarians and men of letters are also represented so that this collection brings together the work of many minds and disciplines.

Table of Contents:

Section I The Transit of Civilization.

A. General
1. A Major Challenge, by Charles Julian Bishko
B. The Spanish Background
2. The Middle Ages in the Conquest of America, by Luis Weckmann
3. America as Fantasy, by Lewis Hanke
4. The Transfer of Plants and Animals, by James A. Robertson
5. The Libraries of Colonial Spanish America, by Lawrence S. Thompson
C. The Portuguese Background
6. The Mobility, Miscibility, and Adaptability of the Portuguese, by Gilberto Freyre
7. The Portuguese Culture in Brazil, by Emilio Willems
D. The New World's Influence on the Old
8. Why Prices Rose in Europe, by John Lynch

Section II Was Inca Rule Tyrannical?

A. Favorable Assessments of the Sixteenth Century
1. How the Incas Achieved So Much, by Pedro de Cienza de Leon
2. The Corruption of an Ideal Indian Society by the Spaniards, by Mancio Sierra de Leguizamo
3. Land Division, Tribute, and Treatment of Vassals, by Garcilaso de la Vega
B. The Spanish Justification for Conquest
4. Viceroy Toledo's Attack on Inca Rule, by Lewis Hanke
5. The Tyranny of Inca Rule, by Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa
C. Modern Interpretations
6. The Inca Empire was Socialistic, by Louis Baudin
7. Despotism or Socialism?, by Alfred Metraux

Section III Relations Between Indians and Spaniards

A. The First Cry for Justice in America
1. The Sermons of Friar Antonio de Montesinos, 1511
B. Just War Against the Indians
2. The Requirement, 1512
3. The Doctrine of Just War, by Silvio Zavala
C. Fundamental Ordinances
4. The Laws of Burgos, 1512
5. The New Laws, 1542
6. Royal Ordinances on “Pacification”, 1573
D. The Encomienda
7. Title of the Encomienda Given to Julio Gutierrez Altamirano in Chile, 1566
8. The Audiencia of New Galicia and the Indians, by J.H. Parry
E. Interpretations
9. A Seventeenth Century Defense of Spain’s Indian Policies, by Juan de Solorzano y Pereyra
10. The Theory and Practice of Racial Segregation in Colonial Spanish America, by Magnus Morner
11. Spanish Exploitation of Indians in Central Mexico, by Charles Gibson
12. The Dawn of Conscience in America, by Lewis Hanke

Section IV Population Statistics and Social History

A. Estimates of Indian Population in 1492
1. The Early Spanish Accounts Were Inflated, by Bailey W. Diffe
2. Sixteenth Century Statements on the Population of Central Mexico Are Substantiated by Modern Calculations, by Woodrow Borah & S.F. Cook
B. Early Spanish Emigration
3. Regional Origins of the Earliest Colonists, by Peter Boyd-Bowman
C. The Colonial Population
4. New Spain’s Century of Depression, by Woodrow Borah
5. The Geographical Distribution of the Negro, by Wilbur Zelinsky
6. The Population of Brazil, by Dauril Alden

Section V Vieira and the Crises of Seventeenth Century Brazil

1. A Great Luso-Brazilian Figure, by C.R. Boxer
2. The Indian Policy of Portugal in America, by Mathias C. Kiemen
3. Sermon Condemning Indian Slavery, 1653, by Antonio Vieira
4. Report on the Conversion of the Nheengaibas, Letter to Alfonso VI, November 28, 1659, by Antonio Vieira

Section VI Urban Life

A. Patterns of Settlement
1. Spanish Royal Ordinances for the Laying Out of New Towns, 1573
2. Colonial Towns of Spanish and Portuguese America, by Robert C. Smith
B. The Texture of Urban Life: Spanish America
3. An Academic Dialogue in Sixteenth Century Mexico City, by Francisco Cervantes de Salazar
4. Burial of an Archbishop Viceroy in Mexico City, 1612, by Hubert Howe Bancroft
5. Riots in Seventeenth Century Mexico City, by Chester Lyle Guthrie
6. The Imperial City of Potosi, Boom Town Supreme, by Lewis Hanke
7. St. Augustine, Outpost of Empire, by John T. TePaske
C. The Texture of Urban Life: Brazil
8. The Cities of Colonial Brazil, by Jose Arthur Rios
9. The Bay of All Saints, by C.R. Boxer

Section VII The Inquisition

A. The Inquisitors and the Indians
1. Jurisdictional Confusion, by Richard E. Greenleaf
2. Fray Diego de Landa and the Problem of Idolatry in Yucatan, by France V. Scholes & Ralph L. Roys
B. An Englishman and the Inquisition
3. Robert Tomson in Mexico, 1555
C. Brazil
4. The Holy Office Visits Brazil, 1591 – 1595, by Arnold Wiznitzer
D. The Inquisition in Seventeenth Century Peru
5. The Portuguese Judaizers in Peru, by Henry Charles Lea
E. The Inquisition in Eighteenth Century Mexico
6. The Mexican Inquisition and the Enlightenment, by Richard E. Greenleaf

Section VIII Science and Medicine

A. Scientific Investigation of the New World in the Sixteenth Century
1. Francisco Hernandez in New Spain, by German Somolinos D’Ardois
2. The Scientific Ideas of Jose de Acosta, by Theodore Hornberger
B. A Seventeenth Century Scholar
3. A Great Savant of Colonial Peru: Don Pedro de Peralta, by Irving A. Leonard
C. Brazil
4. An Overview of Science in Colonial Brazil, by Fernando de Azevedo
D. Late Colonial Developments
5. Flowers for the King, by Arthur Robert Steele
6. Balmis and the Introduction of Vaccination to Spanish America, by Sherburne F. Cook

Section IX Climax and Crisis in the Eighteenth Century

A. New Spain
1. The Reorganization of the Army, by Lyle N. McAlister
2. Problems and Progress in New Spain, by Alexander von Humboldt
B. Peru
3. The Great Revolt of Tupac Amaru, by George Kubler
4. The Failure at the Huancavelica Mercury Mine, by Arthur P. Whitaker
C. A Modern Interpretation
5. The Fall of the Spanish American Empire, by R.A. Humphreys

Section X Historians and Historical Controversies
A. Ideas and Methods
1. How the History of Brazil Should be Written, by Karl F.P. von Martius
2. The Historical Methods of William H. Prescott
3. The Historical Methods of Hubert Howe Bancroft
B. Sources
4. The Other Treasure from the Indies, by Lewis Hanke
C. Interpretations
5. William Robertson and His History of America, by R.A. Humphreys
6. Francisco Encina Interprets Colonial Chile, by Charles C. Griffin
D. Controversy
7. Chickens in America Befiore Columbus?, by Carl O. Sauer

All the Peoples of the World Are Men: The Disputation between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians

Hanke, Lewis, All the Peoples of the World Are Men: The Disputation between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1550 on the Intellectual and Religious Capacity of the American Indians, Minneapolis: The James Ford Bell Lectures, Number 8, 1970.

Reviewed in The Journal of Modern History © 1978.

The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of a colonized people by colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it was a moral and theological debate about the colonization of the Americas, its justification for the conversion to Catholicism and more specifically about the relations between the European settlers and the natives of the New World. It consisted of a number of opposing views about the way natives were to be integrated into colonial life, their conversion to Christianity and their rights and obligations. A controversial theologian, Dominican friar and Bishop of Chiapas Bartolomé de las Casas, argued that the Amerindians were free men in the natural order despite their practice of human sacrifices and other such customs, deserving the same consideration as the colonizers.[1] Opposing this view were a number of scholars and priests including humanist scholar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, who argued that the human sacrifice of innocents, cannibalism, and other such "crimes against nature" were unacceptable and should be suppressed by any means possible including war.[2]

The Dawn of Conscience in America: Spanish Experiments and Experiences with Indians in the New World (Separata)

Hanke, Lewis, The Dawn of Conscience in America: Spanish Experiments and Experiences with Indians in the New World, Reprinted from Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, Vol. 107, No. 2, April, 1963.

Available online.

Bartolomé de Las Casas: An Interpretation of His Life and Writings

Hanke, Lewis, Bartolomé de Las Casas: An Interpretation of His Life and Writings, The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1951. (cover destroyed by termites)

Contents:

Preface.

Chapter I – The Struggle for Justice in the Spanish Conquest of America.
The unique quality of Spanish colonization; Interpretations of the struggle for justice; The climate of opinion in sixteenth century Spain; The nature of the Indians; The sermons of Montesinos; The colonization attempts in Venezuela; Peaceful preaching in Guatemala; The passage and revocation of the New Laws.

Chapter II – Bartolomé de las Casas: Political Theorist and Historian.
What made Spanish domination in America legitimate?; The political theories of Las Casas; Free speech in America; Just and unjust titles to the New World; Influence of the dispute; Why Las Casas wrote history; The controversy concerning his historical work; His virtues and defects as historian; The publication of the History of the Indies; The ,,destruction of the Indies.

Chapter III – Bartolomé de las Casas: Anthropologist.
Was Las Casas an anthropologist?; The Apologetic History; What Las Casas tried to prove; Aristotle and America; Judgment on the anthropological work of Las Casas.

Chapter IV – Conclusion..

Estudios sobre Fray Bartolomé de las Casas y sobre la Lucha por la Justicia en la Conquista Española de América

Hanke, Lewis, Estudios sobre fray Bartolomé de las Casas y sobre la lucha por la justicia en la conquista española de América, Caracas: Universidad Central de Venezuela, 1968.

De la portada del libro:

Estudios sobre fray Bartolomé de las Casas y sobre la lucha por la justicia en la conquista española de América no nos planteará de nuevo la alternativa de las leyendas “negra” y “dorada”, sino, por el contrario, nos dará una imagen más exacta acerca del verdadero significado de la conquista española; además, Lewis Hanke ha querido llevar más allá de lo ordinario esta magnífica recopilación de sus ensayos sobre el “apóstol de los indios”, logrando matices insospechados de la vida de este: ¿fue Las Casas un erudito?, ¿precursor de la antropología?, ¿existencialista? Estas y muchas otras interrogantes serán debidamente clarificadas con la lectura de estas páginas, inmersas en la polémica definidora, notable característica de la moderna metodología histórica.

Contemporary Latin America: A Short History

Hanke, Lewis, Contemporary Latin America: A Short History, Princeton, N.J.: D. Van Nostrand Company Inc., 1968.

Reviewed in The Americas © 1969.

Reviewed in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies.

From the author’s Preface:

My effort has been …to present in the text what appear to me to be the essential facts and the important developments. The documents, many of them written by Latin Americans, have been selected to reinforce and illuminate the text. They constitute a small but I believe representative selection from the literature available. A statement on the “sources of Information on Contemporary Latin America” has been added to guide the reader to other writings, because, like many authors, I cherish the hope that this introduction will stimulate more study of a region and peoples of permanent concern to our citizens…

Encounter- Rediscovering Latin America

Spender, Stephen, Melvin J. Lasky (Eds.)Encounter- Rediscovering Latin America, Vol. XXV, No. 3, September 1965.

Encounter was a literary magazine, founded in 1953 by poet Stephen Spender and early neoconservative author Irving Kristol. The magazine ceased publication in 1991. Published in the United Kingdom, it was a largely Anglo-American intellectual and cultural journal. The magazine received covert funding from the Central Intelligence Agency, after the CIA and MI6 discussed the founding of an "Anglo-American left-of-centre publication" intended to counter the idea of cold war neutralism. The magazine was rarely critical of American foreign policy, but beyond this editors had considerable publishing freedom.[1] Spender served as literary editor until 1967, when he resigned[2] due to the revelation that year of the covert Central Intelligence Agency funding of the magazine, of which he had heard rumors, but had not been able to confirm.

Contents:

Foreword

Mexico City to Buenos Aires, by John Mander

They Gave Us the Land (story), by Juan Rulfo

Spectrum, by James Morris, Albert O. Hirschman, Victor Urquidi, Keith Botsford, Arnold Toynbee

The Spanish Heritage, by J.H. Elliott

Who Are the Indians?, by Jullian Pitt-Rivers

The Mexican Revolution, by Alistair Hennessy

The Brazilian Impasse, by Emanuel de Kadt

The Argentine Trouble, by S.E. Finer

A Visit to Neruda, By Alastair Reid

Poems by João Cabral de Melo Neto, Cesar Vallejo, Nicanor Parra, Octavio Paz, Carlos Drummond de Andrade

Art: International Style, by Lawrence Alloway

The Bones of Cuauhtémoc, by Lewis Hanke

The Modesty of History, by Jorge Luis Borges

The Chilean Experiment, by Hugh O'Shaughnessy

The Two Americas, by Richard Morse

The New Novelists, by Emir Rodríguez Monegal

Politics & Violence, by Malcolm Deas

South America

Hanke, Lewis, South America, Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1959.

The “purpose” according to the Preface:

…to probe beneath what the eye sees and to find the fundamental problems which the Latin Americans themselves and students of this important world area believe to be the most urgent today. This volume aims to describe and analyze the social and economic realities in Brazil and Spanish South America; its companion volume in the Anvil Series makes the same approach to Mexico, Central America, and the Caribbean countries. Both are prepared for students taking international affairs, U.S. diplomatic history, and modern Latin America, and also for the growing number of concerned and thoughtful persons who, in the United States and the hemisphere generally, are pondering the fate of their countries, and are aware that as citizens they must know more about the realities of other lands.

Historia de las Indias

de Las Casas, Bartolomé, Historia de las Indias, (Vol. 1, 2 & 3), [Edición de Agustín Millares Carlo y estudio preliminar de Lewis Hanke], Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1951.

Bartolomé de Las Casas O.P. (Sevilla, 24 de agosto de 14841 – Madrid, 17 de julio de 1566) fue un fraile dominico español, cronista, teólogo, obispo de Chiapas (México), filósofo, jurista y apologista de los indios. Le fue otorgado el título de "Protector de los indios" por el cardenal Cisneros.

Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. (c. 1484[1] – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians". His extensive writings, the most famous being "A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies" and "Historia de Las Indias", chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies, focusing particularly on the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the Indigenous peoples.

Spanish Viceroys in America

Hanke, Lewis, Spanish Viceroys in America, Houston, Texas: University of St. Thomas, 1972.

Lewis Ulysses Hanke

Is the Mexican Revolution Dead?

Ross, Stanley R., Editor, Is the Mexican Revolution Dead?, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966. (paperback)

Hispanic American Historical Review

Extract about Stanley R. Ross:

Stanley Ross's research took him through the full sweep of Mexico's modern history, from that nation's late nineteenth century search for modernization and nationhood through the Revolution of 1910 to the consolidation of the revolution by the one-party state. Perhaps Ross's greatest contribution to Mexican historiography is his political biography entitled Francisco I. Madero, Apostle of Mexican Democracy... Following the publication of the book on Madero, Stanley Ross focused his scholarship on collective historiography. ... Ross's most influential collaboration across borders has to be his edited volume called Is the Mexican Revolution Dead? (first published in 1966 by Alfred A. Knopf). This book ultimately was published in two English language editions, two Spanish editions, and in a Japanese translation. It became one of the best-selling "Borzoi Books on Latin America" issued by Knopf. Ross's edited volume achieved widespread readership as an assigned text in many undergraduate courses on Mexican history and politics, and the United States Information Service distributed many copies of the Spanish version of the book from U.S. embassies throughout Latin America. ... The book is remarkable for bringing together the opinions of some of the most successful politicians and intellectuals of contemporary Mexico. Among the politicians were ex-presidents Miguel Alemán, Adolfo López Mateos, Gustavo Díaz Ordaz, and Luis Echeverría; party leader Jesús Reyes Heroles; revolutionary intellectuals Luis Cabrera, Jesús Silva Herzog, Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, and Heriberto Jara; and labor leader Vicente Lombardo Toledano. Some of Mexico's greatest scholars also participated. They include Daniel Cosío Villegas, Leopoldo Zea, Moisés González Navarro, and Pablo González Casanova. North American scholarship was represented by such pioneer "Mexicanists" as Frank Brandenberg, Frank Tannenbaum, and Howard F. Cline.

Some reviewers scoffed at this edited volume for serving as the official party's view of the Mexican Revolution, which held that the Partido Revolución Institucionalista (PRI) had properly carried out the revolutionary ideals of social reforms and national economic development. However, even Ross himself demurred from this view, offering in his introduction his own viewpoint that the PRI-dominated government of the 1960s had ended the reforms in the interests of political control and the national bourgeoisie. Whatever the shortcomings of this influential volume, it did collect the varying and competing opinions of prominent Mexicans and North Americans into one volume. Ross had accomplished a major feat of cross-border collaboration, from which a whole generation of students and scholars benefited. It would not be going too far afield to assert that this was one of the seminal volumes in precipitating what would eventually become a high tide of revisionist critique, in which the PRI, for all its undoubted accomplishments, would be exposed increasingly for its strong-arm political tactics, its pervasive venality, and its artistry in constructing a self-serving version of Mexican history.

The Imperial City of Potosí

Hanke, Lewis, The imperial city of Potosí; an unwritten chapter in the history of Spanish America, The Hague, Nijhoff, 1956. 60 p. illus. 25 cm.

Book details from questia

Review by Pierre Chaunu

The Portuguese in Spanish America

Hanke, Lewis, The Portuguese in Spanish America, with Special Reference to the Villa Imperial de Potosi, R.H.A. Num. 51, Junio de 1961: 48 pgs.

Lewis Hanke was a Latin American historian. He taught at the University of Hawaii (1926-27), University of Beirut (1927-30), Harvard University (1934-39), University of Texas (1951-1961), Columbia University (1961-67), UC Irvine (1967-69), and the University of Massachusetts (1969-75). He also served as director of the Library of Congress (1939-51).