The following notes outline certain traits of development processes and policies in Latin America since the 1950's. The attempt to do so for a region made up of twenty countries ranging in population from more than one hundred million to less than two million, some of them highly urbanized, with per capita incomes comparable to those of Italy or Spain, some of them overwhelmingly rural, with income levels among the lowest in the world, supposes a good deal of over-simplification and arbitrariness in the selection of traits. However, common historical, cultural and political factors - including those arising from proximity to a single powerful neighbor and common problems of economies dependent on exports of a narrow range of raw materials have generated a predisposition to interpret developmental experiences within a common conceptual framework. However divergent the dominant national ideologies and policies, these have emerged as alternative answers to problems as dependent, intermittent and unbalanced economic growth, political instability, and poverty that have been continually debated at the regional level. A brief general survey is thus somewhat easier than it might be for other major regions of the Third World. The modest purpose is to offer Philippine students of development a starting point for the consideration of experiences in many ways similar to their own country's, as diagnosed in studies such as the so-called Ranis Report, Sharing in Development, and to point to a body of theoretical writings and empirical studies that might throw new light on the issues now being debated in the Philippines.