ABSTRACT
South America in the nineteenth century was isolated from world politicsnot – as were Africa and much of Asia – by the muffle of European imperialism but by the heritage of post-colonialism. The South American republics were also largely isolated from one another. The twentieth century witnessed an accelerating reversal of this pattern, accompanied by spasmodic attempts to assimilate the democratic and industrial revolutions which were the hallmark of the experiences and successes of western Europe and the United States of America: to implant, that is, democratic political forms and social values in narrow oligarchies, and to develop manufacturing industries where trade in primary products had hitherto sufficed for the needs of the ruling classes.
