Author Description

To mark its 25th anniversary, the Centre for Latin American Research and Documentation invited a group of eminent Latin American specialists to address the issues raised by the crisis of development in Latin America from the perspectives of several social science disciplines in a series of public lectures held in Amsterdam. The aspects of the crisis discussed in these lectures include the changing nature of the region's insertion in the world economy, its agrarian and industrial crises, the social impact of these on the poorest sectors of the population, the prospects for further democratization, and the role of new movements of resistance in confronting the crisis. The arguments developed in the essays originate from varied disciplinary contexts, societal experiences and research orientations. This collection puts forward a broad, original and authoritative analysis of the crisis of development, particularly in relation to the 1980s, and it is thus likely to have a significant influence on the ways in which new directions in development theory are defined during the next decade and beyond.