Book Reviews : Ideology and Social Change in Latin America. Edited by JUNE NASH, JUAN COR- RADI, and HOBART SPALDING, JR. (New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, Inc., 1977. Pp. 305. $14.50.)

Abstract

573and shortages or create inhumane and environmentally destructive effects; Wilson's analysis will not help them. Second, I think that he underestimates the influence of American agricultural interest groups. The rise of commodity organizations is ignored (cf. the Flanigan Report, Congressional Record, Senate, April 12, 1973, p. 7201). More importantly, the ASCS and its predecessors are not given their due. Third, I believe that somewhat more traditional congressional &dquo;committee govern-ment&dquo; persisted in Wilson's period than he allowed. (Since then traditional congressional leadership has greatly weakened.) But chiefly I approved. The author has attacked questions of great scope and intricacy. He displays the necessary grasp of politicsnot only of its institutions, procedures, and cultures but also of its men, policies, and events as all these have evolved and interacted over the past half-century in two major countries. He exploits economics as well as political science. He examines primary materials and employs interviews. He has dealt with the substance of significant policies that few political scientists have addressed. The major theme in this volume is the need for working class organization and ideology in order to offset the obstacles to social change provided by the populists and imperialists in Latin America. Some of the arguments are by no means novel, e.g., the evils of the capitalist economic system, the relative conservatism of certain elite groups, the hegemonic role of the United States, and the political tendencies of populism in Latin America. In short, the authors would like us to believe that the key to understanding rebellion and social change in Latin America is rooted in the development of a class consciousness among the agricultural and industrial workers of the area. These ideas are brought together early in the book when the editors state that &dquo;proletarian consciousness occupies a special place in revolutionary movements because, as Marx foretold, it is in the recognition of their fate and the attempt to overcome it that worker revolt is translated into a political movement to attain a larger horizon for all humanity.&dquo;The empirical analysis of these problems of ideology and social mobilization is divided into two parts. Part I includes four articles on the &dquo;Emergence of Worker Consciousness.&dquo; In Part II, seven articles cover &dquo;Ideologies and the Mobilization of Power.&dquo; The Andean countries -Colombia, Bolivia, Chile and Peruare the cases that receive the bulk of attention (six of the eleven papers) in both sections. Also included are separate chapters on Brazil and Cuba. Silverman's treatment of Cuba is primarily concerned with the economic and political obstacles to socialist transformation since Castro took power. Erickson's treatment of populism and control of the working class in Brazil is an excellent description and analysis of the dynamics of social change. The most thoughtful and interesting pieces of this book are the articles that deal wi...