ABSTRACT
Latin America has never been far removed from the moods and manias of its ambitious northern neighbor. While Latin America has been overrun in the past half century with United States (US) slogans, products, and advisers, there has also been movement in the other direction. Latin American scholars have set the tone for studies by US academic specialists in Latin American affairs. Many of the problems that have long plagued Latin America are more and more apparent and bedeviling in the US itself. The clearest trend in the Americas is a trend toward convergence. In most Latin American countries the idea of stimulating the economy from the bottom up—of expanding the domestic market and producing to meet effective mass demand—has been abandoned in favor of producing for export. Latin America's transitions from authoritarianism—in several cases brutal systems of state-sponsored terror—have not been easy.
