Page 4 RAIN August/September 1981 ·.·_ :. • . . . .. · •• . . . . \ t .-·. -....--'---'--"1,"---·,~ -••• • RR: fYr:------ ." ~ _ .co1 C~~ v.~ ,-_ . 10~~ U: D l S 0-"'.' , ~ . - 1 -:· < ·· -:-- --:-- 0 ....ni;!::No vo • ,.-.~M> ; 1·y , _.-... -·= . . .-_. •- •• ,,d.'"-{~:~ ~t\?.9-·. r\,~ ·-·. \ ,.·:··. . • .-. _._ . ·1o- :--:~~::,,. _;,,,,_ ,, "- . . ._ci:,.." . . • .• - -- \--~---- ·,.... • - --·:;{""' - • --~.a-;......:. - ~.....;._~-~_.,..,~~il--'--=:,~;-4-~. With \ • •, ;J'-~ - ~); •• ,("', '\ \ .>ff~..---> ,;..ciik ., ,-i. - \ - ,--~~ • - • - • ~~ \~~,@... ~ only minimal contacts with the out~ide world, the landlocked nation emerged as the most egalitarian society yet known in ii\_ \4" l .,.. ~~,~~: the Western Hemisphere. T~e rise and fall of the Allende regime in Chile during the 70s, the victory two years ago of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and the present turmoil in El Salvador all remind us that Latin America is a 7:egion in 7:1hich dramatic changes are taking place, yet most of us m the United States are (embarrassingly) too little versed in Latin American history, ·politics and culture to adequately assess either the roots or the substance of these changes. In an effort to broaden ou_r own historical understanding, we recently read a book entitled Ehtes, Masses and Modernization in Latin America, 1850-1930, edited by Virginia Bernhard (1979, $9.95 hardcover from University of Te~as Press, Box 7819, Austin, TX 78712). In one of the chapters: wrz~ten by Professor E. Bradford Burns of the University of ~alzform~-:-Los Angeles, we were startled to dis.cover the followmg des:rzptzon of a remarkably modern-sounding experiment in self-relzant development-which rose and fell in Paraguay more than a century ago! Copyright 1979 by the University of Texas Press. Reprinted with permission. Doubtless the most successful resistance to Europeanization took place in Paraguay, where, during the decades from 1810 to 1870, a native alternative took form, influenced in almost equal parts by the American and the European past. Since Paraguay challenged the trend to Europeanize more effectively than ari.y other group or nation, it merits ... special at~ention. Three caudillos dominated Paraguay in the 1810-1870 period: Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia (1814-1840), Antonio Carlos Lopez (1840-1863), and Francisco Solano Lopez (1863-1870). Francia charted the course for Paraguay's autonomous revolution which insured economic independence and possibly the only example of economic development in nineteenth-century Latin America. With only minimal contacts with the outside world, the landlocked nation under Francia's leadership emerged as the most egalitarian society yet known in the Western Hemisphere. He accomplished this unique development
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