Editorial: Dusting off Latin American Social Theory

An Exercise with Reviews

Abstract

For this issue we invite our contributors to review "old" books on Latin American social theory. The whole of this issue of the Cuadernos is devoted to the discussion of books and, consequently, to redefining the review as a form of academic writing. The aim is to review books that were written decades ago by authors who presented their texts as a contribution to the Latin American social sciences, whether alerted by the local development of the sociological discipline, by the tensions between dependence and development, by the concern for Latin American cultural specificity, or by the potential for universalization of experiences and processes arising in the region. All these books address important problems and, indeed, their respective reviewers have decided to return to them because they believe that, despite their imperfections, their pages contain aspects that have survived the passage of time.