Teoria, Accion Social y Desarrollo en America Latina by Aldo Solari; Rolando Franco; Joel Jutkowitz Review by: Michael

Redclift Journal of Latin American Studies, Vol. 10, No. 1 (May, 1978), pp. 190-191 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/155877 . Accessed: 24/09/2012 03:16
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9go Journal of Latin American Studies Bennett H. Wall and George S. Gibb: Teagle of Jersey Standard (New
Orleans: Tulane University Press, I974,
$I2.00).

Pp. xxii + 386.

Bennett H. Wall is a professor of history; George S. Gibb a former editor of the Business History Review and co-author (with E. H. Knowlton) of an important volume on the history of Jersey Standard. Walter Teagle was one of the most important oilmen in the world in the inter-war period. This is a surprisingly superficial book to be written by professional historians of such standing on such a subject. It is inaccurate in detail (e.g. the discussion of the origin of the 'red-line agreement' on p. 2II), and the uncritical adulation of the subject (and his company) expressed in painful cliches is hard to take. (Handclasps are ' crushing ', jaws are 'jutting ', or 'firm ', eyes are 'watchful '.) The numerous photographs include Teagle's desk, his 'famous briefcase' posed beside his fishing tackle box, even his special fishing fly. We are informed that the public would not have been so critical of Jersey Standard had 'it been privileged to witness the Company's principal administrator sitting in stocking feet and wreathed in cigar smoke intently endeavouring to fill a flush' (p. 56). Not recommended for serious students.
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
EDITH PENROSE

Aldo Solari, Rolando Franco and Joel Jutkowitz: Teoria, Accion Social y Desarrollo en America Latina (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1976, n.p.s.). Pp. 636. Fifteen years ago one commentator on Latin American sociology described the state of the discipline in that continent in the following terms: 'teaching is speculative, content eclectic, subject matter poorly defined, teachers are largely untrained and unspecialized, little research is undertaken, and what there is continues the tradition of the pensadores, for very few investigators have been trained in modern methods of research' (Hopper in C. Wagley, ed., Social Science Research on Latin America, Columbia U.P., 1964). Reading Solari, Franco and Jutkowitz's formidable synthesis of Latin American sociological writing one is left in no doubt that Hopper's comments have much less force today than they had a decade and a half ago. Solari et al. have written a long, thoughtful and intellectually engaging book, encyclopaedic in content and ambitious in intent. Their aim has been to do nothing less than analyse the development of 'sociological writing' (in the broadest sense) in Latin America, review its principal theoretical and substantive concerns, and relate these concerns to the developing Latin American perspective on underdevelopment and development. This is a review and interpretation of what has happened rather than an original contribution to intellectual debate. At its best, for example in the section on the 'dual economy' and 'internal colonialism', it is an incisive and illuminating book. At its worst it descends into sociological bathos of the 'what should be the true object of sociological inquiry?' variety. On the whole high standards are maintained and the clear exposition of functionalist (' neo-positivist') and 'critical' (marxist-influenced) perspectives enables the reader to appreciate just how much theoretical progress has been made in Latin American sociology. As a synthesis of opinion, con-

Book Notices

19I

Solari and colleagueshave achieved what sidered criticallybut sympathetically, of underat first seems almost impossible.They have shown how consciousness has been in its reflected intellectual through manifestations, development, many inquiry, until intellectuallabour itself has become reinvigorated.Although they do not say so explicitly, the proof of this fertile intellectualactivity is obvious. Twenty years ago Latin Americans looked to Europe or North America for guidance in the social sciences.Today, those of us Europeanand North American social scientistswho are interestedin theoreticalwork on development(and this observationmight be extended to African and Asian scholars,too) look to is that interestin empirical Latin Americansto provideit. One's only reservation research and methodology has not matched the progress that has been made in otherdirections. London
Wye College and Institute of Latin American Studies,
MICHAEL REDCLIFT

Victor Andrade, My Missions for RevolutionaryBolivia, 1944-62, edited and with an introduction by Cole Blasier (Pittsburgh University Press,
1976, $11.95). Pp. 200.

Victor Andrade'spolitical careerextends beyond the limits set by this fragment of autobiography,and the omissions are significant. In Bolivia's most recent presidentialelection (that of 1966)Andrade came third with almost Io per cent of the vote. The electoralcourt had authorizedhim to use the preciousinitials 'MNR ', although there was little else of that party to which he could lay claim. By the time of his first election campaign in 1940 he had already experiencedten years of political activism, first as a student leader in the I930 revolutionand then as one of the cliques competingfor the favour of President Busch. He was elected deputy for his home province (Sud Yungas) in I940 as a candidate for Estrella de Hierro, an organization of Chaco veterans of reputedly fascistic tendencies, which borrowed at least its name from the Rumanian Iron Guard. In this volume, however, he appearsunder a different label - progressive democratand friend of the United States.The book is aimed at the Washingtondiplomaticcommunityand most space is devoted to explaining and commenting on United States policies towards Bolivia, whereas the republic's domestic politics receive only sketchy and somewhat unsatisfactory treatment. As Ambassadorto Washington 1944-6 and 1952-8 Andrade was a leading participantin two major episodes: he played a key part in the unsuccessful defence of the Villarroel administration,and returned more successfullyafter the 1952 revolution to neutralize the hostility aroused in the United States by the nationalizationof the tin mines. He was evidently a skilful and highly regarded diplomat, who was entrusted by the internationalcommunity with an importantchairmanshipduring the drafting of the United Nations Charter. It would seem that much of the influencehe was able to exercisein Washington came from the reputationand contactshe acquiredthrough the founding of the United Nations. Hence his diplomatic memoirs are of interest not only to addicts of Bolivian politics. They are perhapsmost useful to students of inter-