When the Spaniards settled in Latin America, they immediately surrounded themselves with cities. Equating civilization with urban existence, the early conquerors of the New World rapidly established themselves as urban lords. Latin American cities then became synonymous with Spanish power and all of its privileged attributes: political authority, ecclesiastical activity, commerce, finance, and conspicuous consumption. This volume represents some of the most enduring reflections on the Latin American city. All of the essays were written by public officials, journalists, and social commentators, among others, who participated actively in the affairs of the cities they so perceptively describe. The collection offers critical analyses spanning hundreds of years, beginning with the era of the conquistadores in Tenochtitl n and continuing to the deafening bustle of today's urban crowds in Mexico City. Professors Gilbert Joseph and Mark Szuchman offer translations of classic pieces by writers previously little known to Western audiences: Cobo, Garc a, Santos Vilhena, and Leite de Barros.

Between the 1870s, when the great influx of European immigrants began, and the start of World War I, Argentina underwent a radical alteration of its social composition and patterns of economic productivity. Mark Szuchman, in this groundbreaking study, examines the occupational, residential, educational, and economic patterns of mobility of some four thousand men, women, and children who resided in Cordoba, Argentina's most important interior city, during this changeful era. Through several kinds of samples, Szuchman provides a widely encompassing social picture of Cordoba, describing, among others, the unskilled laborer, the immigrant bachelor in search of roots and identity, the merchant seeking or giving credit, and the member of the elite, blind to some of the realities around him. The challenge that the pursuit of security entailed for most people and the failure of so many to persist successfully form a large part of that picture. The author has made ample use of quantitative techniques, but secondary materials are also utilized to provide social perspectives that round out and humanize the quantitative data. The use of record linkage as the essential research method makes this work the first book on Argentina to follow similar and very successful research methodologies employed by U.S. historians.