Anthropology 

The nations of Latin America lag far behind the United States in economic development, and few of them have achieved political stability.

For decades, professors. politicians, and journalists have been arguing the reasons. But none has approached the question from Darcy Ribeiro's unique vantage point, for he had been both a theoretician (cultural anthropologist) and practicing politician (Minister of Education in Brazil under President Joao Goulart). Combining his practical political experiences with a vast knowledge of historical, cultural, and economic factors. "The Americas and Civilization" is unequaled as a comprehensive study of all the countries of the Western Hemisphere and their interrelationships.

Professor Ribeiro divides the countries into three groups, determined by the makeup of their populations: the Witness Peoples, descendants of native Indians interbred with Europeans (e.g. Mexico); the Transplanted Peoples, all European immigrants (e.g. Argentina); and the New Peoples, descendants of native Indians interbred with Negroes and Iberians (e.g. Brazil). In Ribeiro's view, European colonization of the Americas totally destroyed the native cultures. The new cultures that arose were a response to both the distinctive traits of the colonizing country and its exploitative relationship to its colonies.

In his probing of the reasons for cultural debasement and economic underdevelopment in Latin America, Professor Ribeiro makes a pioneer attempt to apply cultural evolutionary theory to modern problems. His provocative insights will be the subject of argument on both the right and the left for years to come.