No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Shorter Notices 4 7 1 from the fact that the foreign-born tended to be well adjusted and that their intellectual and economic impact was slight. After a brief introduction providing a sketch of the Mexico and the adminis trative institutions with which the immigrant had to deal, the author passes to a discussion of the source of crown concern in this regards: spies, interlopers and contrabanding merchants. Successive chapters deal with the means and circum stances which brought foreigners to New Spain, the role of religion as the litmus test for resident status, other hurdles to acceptance, and the problems which resulted when the crown ordered general expulsions as a means of removing spies and filling its habitually empty coffers. The conclusion, couched in very moderate terms and guided by hispanist sympathies, is fundamentally that 'in spite of negative statutes and discriminatory policies. .. the interplay of law and practice in the Spanish system made room for foreigners who conformed.' (p. 114.) With barely one-hundred and sixteen pages of text this is a very short book, but not unduly so. Certainly, the point that is made is a limited one. This is not to question that it had to be made, and it does allow the author to propose what may well turn out to be a shrewd empire-wide chronology for colonial attitudes towards the foreign born. The display of erudition in the notes is quite convincing, and in view of the conclusion it would be puerile to tax Doctor Nunn for not having carried out a demographic examination aimed at establishing the true number of aliens in the country. The appendices, notes and bibliography-which together are longer than the text, are both useful and interesting. As is becoming customary in this series, the index is as adequate as Cambridge's price is high. On the whole, it may be said that this is a convincingly argued and scholarly study which will be of some interest to Bourbon specialists. University of Ottawa JACQUES BARBIER Judith A. Weiss: Casa de las Amiricas. An Intellectual Review in the Cuban Revolution.