Introduction

Abstract

SUSTAINED SCHOLARLY INTEREST IN LATIN AMERICA AND A BROADER CON-cern with Pan America have long been demonstrated within the academic community by a comparatively small group of devoted men and women in diverse fields of learning. This interest is particularly strong in the United States where a tradition of research on Pan America is rooted deeply in the past century. Over the decades the corps of serious students has grown in number-modestly and sometimes erratically in the earlier years, more numerously and consistently in the latest years.One meaningful measure of this serious and increasing focus of research is revealed in the number of dissertations written on Pan American topics. Almost a century has elapsed since Yale University, in 1869, became the first American university to accept a doctoral dissertation on a Pan American topic.