LATIN AMERICA: Continent in Crisis

This differs from other books on Latin America (specifically Cuba, Curacao and South America) in that it is a close-up of what is happening in each country now- not an historical, biographical and descriptive coverage for the traveler. An important book for those seriously interested in the political and economic pattern of each of the eleven countries covered, based on nine months revisiting countries where he had previously lived and which he had known. He records, day by day, what he learns of the personalities, the political parties, the penetration of communism, the economic, industrial, social, artistic color, the labor situation, the attitudes towards the United States, towards Germany, towards Russia. Occasional personal bits, pen portraits, anecdotes give a sense of something more than the closely reasoned, objective analysis of the greater part of the text. Not as exciting reading as Argentine Diary but essential for understanding the dangers overhanging our neighbor to the south.