- For the countries of Latin America, the 1980s were probably the worst years of economic crisis in this century. From the end of the Great Depression up until 1982, however, Latin American economies had been able to modernize very rapidly; the organization of economic activity established in the larger nations of the region had fostered consistently high rates of growth. In Long-Term Trends in Latin American Economic Development, five essays document various aspects of the economic performance of the region and examine the extent to which the reversals of the past decade call for a rethinking of the models and institutions employed in the past. Reviewing broad trends such as the increasing urbanization and industrialization of Latin America's economies, Miguel Urrutia describes the positioning of a region hopeful of supplying an increased share of world exports into the next century. Angus Maddison charts the economic achievements of the Latin American countries in relation to growth and structural change in Asia, Europe and the United States from 1913 to 1950. Moshe Syrquin describes the structural evolution of the region in the post-World War II period, an era dominated by "import substitution" economic models now subject to reexamination. Montague Lord and Greta Boye review the history of Latin America's commodity exports and the prospects for the region's terms of trade during the remainder of the century. In his concluding essay, Urrutia notes the push toward privatization and decentralization in many of the region's individual economies. He expresses confidence in Latin America's capacity to resume the successful development pattern characteristic of the greater part of this century. Although the 1980s may have been a lost decade for Latin America in terms of per capita income growth, the political and economic transformations that have taken place during the period may have created conditions that will facilitate an accelerated pace of economic modernization in the future.