A 'Yankee Savage in Radical Clothing': The Contribution of Latin American Intellectuals to Irving Horowitz's Critical Sociology.

This article discusses the circulation of knowledge in sociology through a case study based on the transnational exchanges between North-American sociologist Irving L. Horowitz and Latin American sociologists and intellectuals in the sixties. We explore his letters with three figures who played pivotal roles in the institutionalization of sociology in Latin America: Gino Germani, an Italian born sociologist who became a pioneer figure for establishing scientific sociology in Argentina; the Mexican sociologist Pablo González Casanova, who performed a similar role in his country; and Arnaldo Orfila Reynal, a prestigious editor in the region, who headed two of the most powerful publishing houses in the Latin American market for the social sciences and humanities in the 1960s and 1970s - Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE) and Siglo XXI. We argue that while these exchanges happened under unequal conditions produced by the structural inequalities of the global system of knowledge production that emerged after World War II, the works of Latin American intellectuals were relevant for Horowitz's project of critical sociology for two main reasons: they provided intellectual sources for radical theorization on development and modernization, and they represented strategic assets for Horowitz present himself as a mediator between Third World problems and North-American audiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]