ABSTRACT
I am an impostor at a meeting of Latin American experts. I know little of the area, read neither Portuguese nor Spanish, and, apart from a few yards into Mexico at various points in Texas and California, have not even been to the area except to Panama and Cuban territorial waters in 1929 and 1930, rather before the events under discussion, and when I had no knowledge of or interest in economic history. I am here to learn. But perhaps I can stimulate your thought by reading the papers, listening to the discussion, commenting on them from the vantage point of what I may know, and comparing one account with another.
