Book Reviews : Freedom and Reform in Latin America. Edited by FREDERICK B. PIKE. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1959. Pp. ix, 308. $6.00.)

• Published date: 01 June 1960
• Date: 01 June 1960
• DOI: 10.1177/106591296001300242
• Author: James L. Busey
• Subject Matter: Articles

550

democracy

is

inadequately

understood,

such

as

the

developing

countries

of

Asia

and

Africa.

As

Adolf

A.

Berle

says

in

the

foreword,

it is

time

that

a

new

literature

of

democracy

should

appear.

FRANK

MUNK

Reed

College

Freedom

and

Reform

in

Latin

America.

Edited

by

FREDERICK

B.

PIKE.

(Notre

Dame:

University

of

Notre

Dame

Press,

1959.

Pp.

ix,

308.

$6.00.)

The

present

volume,

like

Professor

Johnson’s

Political

Chance

in

Latin

America,

represents

the

sort

of

mature,

interpretive

analysis

of

Latin-American

affairs

whose

audience

has

no

doubt

been

increased

by

the

Venezuelan

anti-

Nixon

rioters

and

by

the

monstrous

barbarisms

of

Somoza,

Trujillo,

Batista,

Castro

&

Co.

Freedom

and

Ref orm

in

Latin

America

is

comprised

of

twelve

essays

by

eleven

different

scholars

in

history,

economics,

sociology,

anthropology,

literature,

education,

and

political

science.

Political

scientists

will

be

particularly

attracted

to

historian

Pike’s

treatment

of

Sources

of

Revolution,

which

provides

a

rather

perceptive

analysis

of

the

bane-

ful

consequences

of

intermixing

religion

and

politics

-

consequences

which

in-

clude

the

interjection

into

political

controversy

of

a

peculiarly

dogmatic,

uncom-

promising,

almost

theological

note.

Professor

Pike

quite

ably

comments

on

the

violent

break

with

Spain,

the

role

of

personalism,

and

other

factors

as

contribut-

ing

to

the

violently

disruptive

traditions

of

Spanish-American

political

life.

An-

other

historian,

Professor

Charles

C.

Cumberland,

stresses

that the

reliance

in

much

of

Latin

America

on

many

disparate

traditions

-

&dquo;democracy

and

auto-

cracy,

equality

and

stratification,

community

service

and

individualism,

liberty

and

paternalism&dquo;

-

has

created

a

corresponding

gulf

between

constitutional

theory

and

actual

practice,

and

hence

an

inducement

to

instability

and

authori,

tarianism.

Professors

William

S.

Stokes

and

Russell

H.

Fitzgibbon,

whose

names

are

quite

familiar

to

political

scientists,

offer

useful

commentaries,

respectively,

on

the

Latin-American

search

for

a

conceptual

Hispanidad,

and

on

the

impact

of

depressed

economy

and

changing

politics

on

Uruguayan

democracy.

The

article

by

Professor

Alceu

Amoroso

Lima,

distinguished

Brazilian

liter-

ary

scholar,

may

also

be

said

to

offer

something

in

the

way

of

a

quick,

very

well-

organized

sketch

of

principal

reformist

trends

in

colonial,

imperial,

and

republi-

can

Brazil.

Problems

of

organization,

or

subject-matter,

or

depth

of

treatment,

tend

to

make

remaining

articles

rather

less

productive

for

political

scientists.

An

occasional

and

disturbing

tendency

of

a

few

contributors

is

to

treat

Latin-

American

freedom and

reform

in

rather

rarefied,

esoteric

terms

which

must

have

little

or

no

meaning

to

an

agitating

political

leader,

worker,

peasant,

student,

or

journalist.

In

his

introductory

essay

(which

does

not

match

the

high

quality

of

his

article

on

Sources

of

Revolution)

Editor

Pike

dwells

on

the

theme

that

expanding

governmental

functions

related

to

reform

movements

pose

threats

to

certain

middle-class

freedoms,

which

may

drive

affected

people

into

a

kind

of

withdrawing,

introverted

&dquo;inward

reform&dquo;

or

internal

substitute

for

the

external