THERE ARE SEVERAL good reasons for Latin Americanists to consider offering a course on urban history. In terms of appeal to students, such a course has some obvious hooks: its easy compatibility with visual aids such as slides, photographs, and movies (of which more later); its culmination, if one chooses to carry the course up to the present, in the hyper-urbanization of the post-1945 period, a phenomenon in which many students are interested; and the ready comparability of Latin American urban history to that of other regions, including the United States. This last is a particular advantage for those who teach, as I do, at urban universities, where interest in urban studies and issues often runs higher than interest in Latin America per se. These comparative possibilities can be attractive for the instructor as well. While preparing and giving this course I have benefitted from very helpful and stimulating discussions with colleagues who teach the urban history of the United States, Japan, and the Soviet Union. Another attraction for the instructor is that, again, those who opt to carry their course up to the present will encounter a body of literature on contemporary urbanization in the region which is creative and thought-provoking, particularly in the area of theory. This literature, which is largely the creation of urban sociologists, has not crossed disciplinary boundaries to any great extent or been read widely by historians, to our loss. This literature in turn suggests a final reason for giving such a