To the south of the United States lies an exciting world. It is a world of stupendous natural contrasts, volcanoes and unexplored jungles, luxuriant islands and endless prairies, mountains as desolate as the moon, and a river containing an island bigger than France! It is a world of blending cultures — Indian, Hispanic, African — the combination of which has produced a unique, vigorous civilization.
The cities of these Latin-American countries range in the extreme from the most modern metropolises to those where stone streets existed even before the Spaniards came. Their architecture is among the most interesting in the world, contrasting as it does ancient ruins, city walls, colonial cathedrals with bright-colored skyscrapers of ultra-modern design.
The eyes of America, especially those of young America, will increasingly be focused on this bursting vigorous world, which will, it is calculated, pass the United States and Canada in population by 1970. Containing as it does vast fertile areas as yet relatively unpopulated, there are no visible limits to its present and future possibilities.
The people range from the Indians of the Andean highlands — who live almost as they did when the Inca. "Lord of the four corners of earth," ruled from Colombia to Chile — to the city dwellers of Buenos Aires, Montevideo and Santiago, whose culture seems an extension of Europe. There are unconquered Indians inhabiting the same countries as vital businessmen in Mexico, Colombia or Brazil, who are so busy that they even work through the siesta. But no matter how different the people of Latin America are in color, race or cultural background, a common bond of Latin culture, as well as language, unites all the peoples from Rio Bravo to the Tierra del Fuego.
But there is something that we. too. have in common with Latin Americans. We share a democratic heritage. Most of the countries are republics which have broken away from the European motherland that colonized them. One of the outstanding features of this book is the concise but comprehensive story of how these countries attained independence and of their continuous strivings toward democracy. As Americans in a world of power politics, it is to our interest to know the heritage and environment of those who are, in effect, our natural allies.
Charles F. Berlitz
Vice President,
The Berlitz Schools of Languages