Bringing up to date the well-known Latin American structuralist literature of the 1950s and 60s on economic development, this text offers a neostructuralist alternative to the neoliberal adjustment policies now so widely advocated. The book covers the main themes of the development problematique in Latin America: the region's historical background, the consequent nature of its development strategy, the use of its resources, the evolution of its key economic sectors (agriculture and industry), the new external economic environment, and - last, but far from least - the changing role of the state. In addressing each of these topics, the authors review the relevant early structuralist thinking, critically examine the actual development experience of the 1950s-1970s, analyze the debt crisis of the 1980s and its consequences, and conclude with a neostucturalist response to contemporary national and international conditions.