Several lists of books relating to the southern countries of the Western
Hemisphere have been published; but as they contain the titles of works
of unequal value, and at the same time are entirely wanting in critical
comment, they have failed to supply the urgent demand that exists for
guidance in buying and reading. To meet this want the present little
book, which disclaims all pretense to completeness in the bibliographical
sense, was hastily compiled. Amid the pressure of work the compiler found
it necessary to confine himself to listing only such books as could be
readily come at in the libraries of the city of New York.
The method pursued in making up the list was as follows: first, to
introduce the titles of widely heralded works, without regard to their
merit, in order to discriminate between them; and, second, to bring
forward less well known publications so as to draw attention to their
excellencies. To have listed only such as could be commended would
have failed to furnish that perspective which is essential to giving
prominence to works of real merit.
If it should occur to any that some of the comments are slightly
censorious, what follows is offered as an explanation and an excuse.
Human beings are prone to wander over the earth, and to print accounts
of their feelings and thoughts regarding the lands they visit, and some
even write books about countries they have never seen. If the only
denizens of alien lands were beasts, birds and insects, writing books
concerning them would involve little social responsibility. However, most
of the lands now known to tourists, reporters, historians, scientists,
sociologists, reformers and other travelers are inhabited by beings not
remarkably unlike those who come to investigate them, particularly in
pride and sensitiveness and a certain preference for their own point of
view and manner of living and thinking. Moreover, the dwellers in these
alien lands commonly have commercial, social and intellectual relations
with the peoples represented by the visitors, and their attitude toward
them is to a considerable degree determined by what the latter publish
regarding the countries they visit.
In view of all this, it is impossible to overemphasize the seriousness of
the responsibility that rests upon those who represent their country in
other lands, or who give publicity to their thoughts concerning them. The
obligation to consider the serious influence of books upon international
relations seems not to have been generally recognized, however, else many
of those who have betaken themselves to authorship would either have
written differently or refrained altogether from writing. Yet authors
will not be denied; even publishers are unwary; and the general public
has not ceased to be gullible. As a result of this failure to recognize
responsibility, a vast quantity of blunderingly conceived, hastily
composed and faultily written literature regarding foreign nations has
been turned out by inexperienced, ill informed and strongly biased
writers of all the more important countries.
The Code provides no penalty for a general ignorance of history, a
slovenly style, national prejudice, intellectual provincialism, a lack
of insight, and bad taste. As a result the Philistines roam the world
unhindered, and criticism is the sole weapon with which to keep them
in discipline. Until writers realize that only what is just and true
in matter, and what is finished in form is worthy to be published,
such unsparing criticism as that which characterizes this work must be
continued.
A few words are necessary as to details. It will be observed that the
spelling, and the style, to use this word in the sense in which printers
employ it, are not uniform, that the names of countries and cities
vary in the different titles and in the comments. This was inevitable.
The orthography and style of the titles are different in the works
from which they were taken. In scrupulously reproducing them it was
necessary to admit many inconsistencies. The compiler is responsible for
the orthography of the comments only, and in them he exhibits what he
considers the correct form of the place names introduced.