ABSTRACT
The factual information - much of which could not be found in any other general book about Latin America - is marshalled in support of arguments rather than to cover any particular area or period. A disliked established order can be changed either by peaceful reform or by revolution. Therefore, a finding that the first road is blocked goes some way to account for the appeal of the second. Barrett’s thesis is that Latin America’s inability to move towards affluence and a stable democracy is not due to easily modifiable political or economic circumstances but to the prevalent and deeply ingrained attitudes that he calls ‘modernisation-impeding values’. Some of the statements about ‘modernisation-impeding values’ amount to an assertion that what some of the early and forthright Latin American thinkers wrote about the character of their nations remains true. Without being aware of it, the author is a bit ethnocentric about the undefined concept of ‘modernisation’.
