In an Aug. 20 New York Times article, "A Global Gauge of Greased Palms," Chile was ranked as the least "corrupt" Latin American country. In addition, a Wall Street Journal article on Aug. 18 stated that "the world is beating a path to Chile's door for good reason. ... It privatized social security in 1981."
Chile has been a laboratory for constructive political and economic experiments throughout most of its history. Practically alone among Latin American countries, it has witnessed only one major interruption in democratic government in the 170 years since national consolidation: the Pinochet dictatorship of 1973- 1989. In 1990 the military government shifted effortlessly to the democratically elected President Patricio Aylwin.
Because of its success, Chile's experiment in political and economic development is studied by other countries in the process of redemocratization. According to economist Markos Mamalakis of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and contributing editor to the &Handbook of Latin American Studies, "Since 1985 Chile has achieved an average of 5.6 percent real annual growth in its gross domestic product. ... In 1992 its rate of inflation had fallen below 20 percent ... [and] its foreign debt is one of the lowest in Latin America."
Owing to a great extent to Chile's relatively peaceful political development, the country has produced solid research in most fields, as well as two Nobel laureates in literature. In the Library of Congress the researcher will find a remarkable collection on Chile.
According to William Sater, a U.S. historian of Chile who is a professor at California State University at Long Beach, "The Library of Congress has "one of the world's finest collections on Chile."
Mr. Sater, author of Chile and the War of the Pacific (1986), is also a contributing editor to the Handbook of Latin American Studies and has been reviewing materials on Chilean history since 1987.
History. The first books about Chile -- more than a dozen early chronicles -- came to the Library with the Thomas Jefferson collection in 1815. An Italian translation of Juan Ignacio Molina, Compendio della storia geografica, naturale e civile del Regno del Chile (Compendium of the Geographic, Natural and Political History of the Kingdom of Chile) (Bologna: 1776), was given to Jefferson by prominent Spanish American revolutionary Francisco Miranda.
In a letter to Charles Willson Peale dated Jan. 15, 1809, Jefferson wrote referring to the Molina work, "I have lately seen Molina's account of Chili in which, correcting Buffon's classification of the wooly animals, he speaks of one, the Chilihueco, or Chili sheep, which may possibly be the same with the fleecy goat of Gov. Lewis."
Other books that came with the Jefferson collection include the 1569 versified narrative of the conquest of Chile, La Araucana (The Araucanian Epic) (Madrid: 1776), by Spanish soldier and journalist Alonso Ercilla y Zu¤iga. Another of Jefferson's volumes was Alonzo de Ovalle's Historia del Regno di Cile (Rome: 1646). Other rare treasures in the Jefferson corpus that reflected the Sage of Monticello's keen interest in the Americas are Relaci¢n hist¢rica del viaje a la Am‚rica meridional (History of the Trip to Southern America) by Jorge Juan and Antonio de Ulloa (Madrid: 1748); Histoire des navigations aux Terres Australes (History of the Voyage to Australian Lands) by Charles de Brosses (Paris: 1756); Nouveau voyage autour du Monde ... les c"tes meridionales de Chili ... (New Voyage Around the World Along the Southern Coast of Chile) by Guillaume Dampier (Paris: 1701-1705); Description des Terres Magellaniques et des pays adjacens (Description of the Lands of Magellan and the Nearby Countries) by Thomas Faulkner (Paris: 1787) and Relation du voyage de la Mer du Sud aux c"tes du Chile et du P‚rou fait pendant 1712, 1713 et 1714 (Account of the Trip to the South Seas Along the Coast of Chile and Peru Undertaken During 1712, 1713 and 1714)by Am‚d‚e Francois Frezier (Paris: 1732).
The large and varied history collection is impressive because Chile, since its independence, has nurtured a long succession of distinguished historians and social commentators. The Library has all relevant works by notable Chilean historians such as Diego Barros Arana, Ricardo Donoso, Guillermo Feli£ Cruz, Eugenio Pereira Salas, Benjam¡n Vicu¤a MacKenna, Jos‚ Lastarria and Sergio Villalobos and historians from elsewhere such as Claude Gay, Simon Collier, William Sater and Frederick Pike.
Politics and Government. Chilean politics in the 20th century attracts a wide spectrum of scholars, policy analysts, experts in finance and journalists. Because Chilean formal democracy departed somewhat from the pattern of caudillism and militarism so common in Latin America, much of the country's literature on politics focuses on constitutional history and party structure.
The various periods in Chilean politics are amply represented by thousands of titles in the general, microfilm and pamphlet collections of the Library. Invaluable primary source materials can be found in the reports of the ministerios (Cabinets), the congressional record or debates for both chambers -- which the Library has from the beginning of the Chilean Congress in 1810, codes of law, statutes, the official gaceta, jurisprudence and constitutional history.
Of interest to scholars are publications of the Tribunal Constitucional, whose practices are widely imitated by countries in the process of redemocratization. The Library possesses published memoirs by presidents and a great many monographic studies about Chilean chief executives, such as Paul Sigmund's The Overthrow of Allende and the Politics of Chile (1977). President Eduardo Frei Montalva (father of the current President Frei) is represented by 49 titles, while there are 69 works by or about former President Augusto Pinochet. The Library's collections are especially strong in materials about political parties and movements, class conflict and the military.
According to Everette Larson, head of the Hispanic Reading Room, "We see a steadily increasing demand for materials on the Chilean economy." Chile may well be the next nation to sign on to the North American Free Trade Agreement. Chile will also be one of key countries in the fledgling MERCOSUR trading block.
The Library houses numerous books and articles on Chile's economic development, agriculture, agrarian reform, rural life, industry and commerce. Authoritative works are Markos Mamalakis's The Growth and Structure of the Chilean Economy, from Independence to Allende (1976), Development and Social Change in the Chilean Countryside (1992), El campesinado chileno, sus organizaciones productivas (Chilean Peasants and Their Organizations for Production) (1988), Archibald Ritter's Development Strategy and Structural Adjustment in Chile: From the Unidad Popular to the Concertacion 1970-1992 (1992) and Chile's Labor Markets in an Era of Adjustment (1990).
Archaeology, Anthropology and Ethnography. In these fields the Library has worked closely with specialists from the Smithsonian Institution to develop its collections. Betty Meggers, for example, also serves as a contributing editor to the Handbook.
Paleo-Indian and archaic phases of Chilean cultures, covering the arid and semiarid north, the central valley and the semiarid south are well represented at the Library. Monographs and periodical articles in these vast fields range from the archaeologists' concerns with lithic habitats to anthropologists' and ethnologists' interest in with contemporary indigenous groups.
According to Terry Peet, head of the Hispanic Acquisitions Section of the Exchange and Gift Division, the Library received 106,232 publications relating to Chile during 1975-1994. Mr. Peet said that "beginning in 1985 a special and vastly expanded exchange with the Biblioteca Nacional de Chile went into effect, dramatically increasing receipts of both monographs and serials."
Special Collections
In the Microform Reading Room noteworthy items include a corpus of early 20th century Chilean theater and an archives, Chilean Song 1960-1976. The Library also recently microfilmed two archives of Hispanic and Iberian pamphlets which will be available by the end of the year.
Geography and Map Division. Maps of Chile number almost 3,000 sheets. The Library has "an impressive cartographic collection for Chile, especially in maps produced by the U.S. [Defense Mapping Agency]," which are not "readily available" elsewhere, said Sergio Vergara of the Universidad de Chile, who did research at the Library last summer.
Ronald Grim, a specialist in cartographic history, reports that the cartographic collection contains country, subject, province, city and municipio, or town, maps. Of special interest are maps and atlases from Chile's boundary disputes with Argentina.
Manuscripts. Holdings are of special interest to the diplomatic historian. The Manuscript Division houses the papers of 19th century ship captains, merchants and diplomats who traveled to Chile and other parts of South America. The most recent manuscript acquisition regarding Chile is the papers of Ambassador Harry Barnes (1978-1988).
Perhaps the most notable Chilean manuscript holdings are the papers of writer Gabriela Mistral, containing letters from prominent figures and unpublished poetry and diplomatic correspondence.
These are only a fraction of the books and nonbook materials in the Library's collections. A good place to start research is in the Hispanic Reading Room, where an orientation and reference assistance are available.
