The highlights of the Latin American economy are: agriculture, livestock, mineral extraction and industries that produce consumer goods.
The name Latin America is derived from the languages spoken in different parts of the American continent. In North America, only Mexico is inserted in this context, in addition to all Central and South America. This means that they are Latin-speaking countries, such as Portuguese, French and Spanish. The countries that make up Latin America have similarities in terms of underdevelopment, such as fragile and backward economies, social and political problems.
In Latin America, subsistence agriculture was developed, including hunting, fishing and gathering. With the arrival of European colonizers, most Latin countries began to cultivate products for export, with the aim of making a profit. Two forms of production are identified, one for the foreign market (monoculture) and the other for internal supply (polyculture). Latin countries are major exporters of primary products. In addition, they had a late industrialization in relation to the developed nations, a reason that made Latin America become dependent.
Current economy
Significant changes have recently been made in Latin agriculture that have led to profound changes in space and the economy. The changes occurred as a result of the insertion of machines, technologies, implements, agricultural inputs (herbicides, fertilizers, insecticides among others) and management techniques, which resulted in increased productivity and, consequently, profits.
Livestock now occupies a prominent place, an activity practiced in a semi-intensive way. European cattle breeds are raised in cold climates and the Zebu breed in tropical climates. Another economic activity that is widespread in practically all Latin American countries is extraction and mining. There is a large commercial flow developed internally between the Latin components, since there is a dependence on some ores, in addition to their export to different places in the world.
The industrial sector is divided into traditional and processing industries. They operate in the production of raw materials from the processing of minerals or agricultural products, including those that produce consumer goods, such as the traditional food and textile industries, although some countries have a more diversified industrial sector, which varies from the food industry. Brazil, Argentina and Mexico are three countries who based on the latest technology.
You can try Abbreviation Finder to get a complete list of initials and acronyms with South America.
If you consider pursing a law degree and decide to study in Latin America, then you’ve come to the right place. Here, we provide rankings for all law schools in South America based on alumni reviews, graduate employment rate, faculty and student ratio, admissions acceptance rates, etc. In addition to the South American rankings, you can also see where each school is ranked world wide.
Among 25 top ranked law schools, 8 are found in Chile, 6 in Brazil and Colombia respectively. The remaining 5 are from Argentina, Peru, and Mexico. For detailed rankings of all law schools in South America, please see the following table.
| Latin America Rankings | World Rankings | Law School | Nation |
| 1 | 40 | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (UC) | Chile |
| 2 | 45 | Universidade de São Paulo | Brazil |
| 3 | 49 | Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) | Mexico |
| 4 | 51 | Universidad de Buenos Aires (UBA) | Argentina |
| 5 | 77 | Universidad de Chile | Chile |
| 6 | 78 | Universidad de los Andes | Colombia |
| 7 | 105 | Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV) | Brazil |
| 8 | 114 | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso | Chile |
| 9 | 115 | Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú | Peru |
| 10 | 116 | Pontificia Universidad Javeriana | Colombia |
| 11 | 124 | Universidad Externado de Colombia | Colombia |
| 12 | 125 | Universidad Nacional de Colombia | Colombia |
| 13 | 174 | Universidad del Rosario | Colombia |
| 14 | 175 | Universidad Diego Portales (UDP) | Chile |
| 15 | 176 | Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro | Brazil |
| 16 | 224 | Tecnológico de Monterrey | Mexico |
| 17 | 225 | Universidad Adolfo Ibàñez | Chile |
| 18 | 226 | Universidad Austral | Argentina |
| 19 | 227 | Universidad de Antioquia | Colombia |
| 20 | 229 | Universidad de los Andes – Chile | Chile |
| 21 | 268 | Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro | Brazil |
| 22 | 272 | Universidad Austral de Chile | Chile |
| 23 | 273 | Universidad de Concepción | Chile |
| 24 | 275 | Universidade de Brasília | Brazil |
| 25 | 276 | Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais | Brazil |
Unfortunately, there are no top ranked law universities from other 7 countries in Latin America (Bolivia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela, as listed by Countryaah.)
Film in United States, North America
An important American forerunner in the film was British-American photographer Eadweard Muybridge’s series photographs of animals and humans in motion, which he showed during lectures during the 1880’s with the help of his projector, zoopraxiscope. At the same time, Hannibal Goodwin developed the celluloid film with dramatically improved light sensitivity. Industrial magnate George Eastman began the serial production of 35 mm film in 1889.
From 1888–93 Thomas Edison’s research team under William Dickson (1860-1935) worked out a working film camera, Kinetograph. In order to get an exact synchronization between the film and the shutter mechanism, the celluloid strips were perforated, and in order to control the lighting conditions the 1893 world’s first recording studio, Black Maria, was built. There, simple sketches, circus numbers and performances were recorded with well-known artists and athletes.
For playback, the titanium cabinet Kinetoscope was built. The patents were ready in 1891, but commercially Edison’s film technology was first launched in 1894 with licensed Kinetoscope in the world’s major cities. In competition with Lumière and other innovators, the company launched the project Vitascope in 1896. Several Edison employees broke out and formed film companies with their own patents. Dickson founded American Mutoscope & Biograph, which made films in a technically improved 70 mm format, and J. Stuart Blackton (1875–1941) and Albert E. Smith (1875–1958) formed the Vitagraph in 1897. It marked the beginning of a 20-year patent battle in which Edison claimed exclusive rights to film technology and legalized most of its competitors.
Edison remained for ten years the United States’ most important film producer with Edwin S. Porter as director, among others. to the narrative-driven “The Great Train Plunder” (1903). Much of what has been attributed to Porter – the close-up, the continuity clipping, the intersection between parallel acts – is not his ingenuity, but he used them with a dramaturgical feeling that struck the contemporary. The years 1904–08, the American film industry expanded commercially through the establishment of thousands of cinemas, after the ticket price called nickelodeons. To take control of the market, Edison formed the MPPC (Motion Pictures Patents Company) cartel, the Edison Trust, which illegally declared all use of unlicensed film equipment. It was immediately challenged by independent film companies – “The Independents” – withCarl Laemmles IMP (Independent Motion Picture Co., 1909, from 1912 Universal Pictures) in the lead.
During the patent litigation, the recordings were moved out of the New York area to more southern locations such as Cuba, Florida, Texas and Southern California. A common misconception is that they wanted to escape Edison’s combat measures. The motive was rather that the early raw film required a lot of light, which was cheap in the sun. Southern California also had a stable and warm climate with over 300 days of sunshine a year, no tropical diseases or hurricanes, and cheap land prices. The transcontinental railroad had its terminus in the port city of Los Angeles, a modern society with good infrastructure. The environment was varied: the beach, the sea, the mountains, the desert and the modern city were located within a few miles.
As early as 1910, permanent recording studios had been built in Hollywood, but it was not until Carl Laemmle’s founding of Universal City in 1915 that the modern film factory emerged to guarantee a broad and continuous film production. When Edison’s cartel was forcibly dissolved in 1918, virtually all “independents” had established themselves with their own film factories. Pioneer DW Griffithbecame one of the founders of United Artists. During the years 1908-15, he developed an increasingly sophisticated storytelling technique, in particular cutting and camera movements that oriented the viewer in time and space, cause and effect, even under advanced elements such as alternation between parallel actions, dreams and flashbacks. From his form experiment was born the classic film story, which, like the bourgeois novel, conveyed the emotions and motives of the protagonists, but which could also depict complicated events such as historical events. This storytelling technique was challenged by the Soviet 1920’s film and European art film in the 1960’s. However, due to its variability and ability to absorb new styles, it still forms the basis for how films are told.
The dominance of Hollywood companies after the First World War was made possible through a global distribution network of offices in most countries. Even during the crisis years of the 1950’s and 1960’s, other countries’ film industries were not able to compete significantly. The transition to audio film 1927-30 did not mean any major changes in the story. In contrast, the corporate structure was shaken when the companies that early invested in the sound technology grew and bought up former competitors.
The early Hollywood companies can be divided into two groups: five large (majors) and three small (minors), almost all authoritatively controlled by colorful film moguls. Majors were the totally vertically integrated companies, ie. who controlled the entire business, from the production at the film factories through distribution through their own subsidiaries to the film screenings at their own cinemas: Loew’s / MGM (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, founded in 1924, directed by Louis B. Mayer), Paramount (1916, Adolph Zukor), Warner Bros. (1923, brothers Jack, Harry and Sam Warner), RKO (Radio-Keith-Orpheum, 1928-57) and 20th Century-Fox (1935, Darryl F. Zanuck). Minors were the ones who only owned production and distribution: Universal (1912, Carl Laemmle), Columbia (1918; Harry Cohn, 1891–1958) and United Artists (1919). Alongside them were smaller companies, the most important of which were Republic (1934–59) and Monogram (1931–53), and independent producers, such as Samuel Goldwyn, David O. Selznick and Walter Wanger (1894–1968).
Despite economic depression, Hollywood companies continued to expand until the record year of 1946, when over 90 million tickets were sold each week in the United States alone. Three factors then contributed to stagnation. The first was a congressional inquiry that in 1948 resulted in an antitrust law, called The Paramount Decision. The largest companies were forced to sell their cinema chains. The other was the congressional committee of HUAC(House Un-American Activities Committee) investigations and hears about suspected communist infiltration in the United States. Hollywood became a target, and in the following decade hundreds of film workers were laid off. The third and most decisive factor was the growth of the welfare society: the growing middle class moved out to residential suburbs and a new leisure industry far from the slums of the slums of the city centers. TV became a cheap new mass media that sucked up many new talents and attracted the cinema audience to stay home.
During the 1950’s and 1960’s, the industry attracted, among other things. wide film format and 3D movie. But ticket revenue continued to plummet. In 1946, over 60% of the US population went to the cinema; after 1965 the level has been 10%. The Hollywood companies that were not closed down were sold to large corporations and went on to co-produce and distribute films made at new independent small companies. A typical one consisted of established Hollywood names, such as Hecht-Hill-Lancaster, formed by screenwriter Ben Hecht, producer James Hill (1916–2011) and actor Burt Lancaster. But also new talents started their own, such as producer James B. Harris (born 1928) and director Stanley Kubrick with Harris-Kubrick Productions.
In the pursuit of cheap labor, Hollywood’s recordings moved to Europe. In Rome, many of the great-seller of the time were recorded, history epic as “Quo Vadis?” (1950) and “Ben-Hur” (1959) but also romantic comedies such as “Princess on the Wake” (1953). Contrary to the trend, drive-in-bios had brilliant times. Car-borne young people were attracted to low-budget horror, action movies and rock ‘n’ roll by, among other things. director and producer Roger Corman. He became a mentor to the new generation of film school-educated directors born after 1940. Warner Bros., Universal and Columbia were rescued by their branches in the radio and record industry – crucial in the production and launch of youth films with trendy popular music. In addition, both companies were early in starting new television production departments.
During the 1960’s, the film industry was revitalized by a new generation of TV-schooled or university-educated directors. It coincided with the breakthrough for the author theory, which emphasized that the film director was the film’s real artist and author. In this way, many in the young guard became the industry’s new poster name, e.g. Arthur Penn, John Frankenheimer, Sam Peckinpah, Robert Altman, Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Oliver Stone.
The 1970’s started the blockbuster – the name after the wobbly queues around the block of cinemas. Marketing was now as costly as production, and movie series became commonplace: Star Wars (1977–2005), Star Trek (1979–), “The Legend of the Ring” (2001–03), “Harry Potter” (2001–11). Also low-budget productions became bestsellers, such as the horror films series “Bloody Night of All Saints” (“Halloween”, 1978–), “Friday the 13th” (1980–), “Terror on Elm Street” (1984–94, 2010–). The new multiplex cinemas in connection with shopping centers focused on large-scale films that attracted candy, soft drinks and popcorn – a much larger source of revenue than ticket sales.
Artistically, the blockbusters gave rise to a so-called high concept, developed by producers such as the radar couple Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson (1943–96). The films were made on the basis of marketing strategies for the strong young audience. Sex, action, rock music, beautiful young stars, product placement and a commercial inspired film language characterized, among other things. “Top Gun” (1986), “Independence Day” (1996), “Armageddon” (1998) and “Transformers” (2007, sequels 2009 and 2011).
Towards the end of the century, the film companies became part of large media groups, which dominated in all areas: daily press, radio, TV, magazines, books, computer games and the internet. The biggest was Time Warner (1990, merger with AOL 2000). Other groups are Disney, NBC / Universal, Viacom (owns Paramount), News Corporation (owns 20th Century Fox), SPE (Sony Pictures Entertainment, owns Columbia and MGM) and DreamWorks SKG (1994). Since several of them have ownership interests outside the United States, they can now rather be referred to as multinational corporations.
The film festivals Sundance (1978–) and Slamdance (1995–) and companies such as Miramax and New Line Cinema became, during the 1980’s, a forum for alternative, form-experimental and politically engaged films called indies (independent films). Sources of inspiration were the traditional experimental film, the new wave and the European art film. The directors were born in the 1950’s or later and had as domestic role models, among other things. John Cassavetes and John Sayles. During the 1990’s, the media groups bought most companies and made them subsidiaries. Some groups started their own low-budget companies, eg. Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures Classics.
With George Lucas (“Star Wars”) as the initiator, Hollywood switched to digital film production, first through computer-animated special effects in the 1980’s, the decade later through recording and editing. In the 2000’s, the transition to digital cinemas was also begun. The digital format was cheaper and facilitated TV viewing and transmission to various video formats, something that with VHS and then DVD and Blu-ray became the main source of income for the film industry.
Genres and stars
Hollywood’s marketing has traditionally focused on stars and genres, often in combination. Some film companies have dominated certain genres so that they have always been associated with them, eg. Warner Bros. (gangster movie), Universal (horror movie) and MGM (musical). Since the golden age of slapstick at Mack Sennett’s Keystone company in the 1910’s, comedy has been one of the cornerstones of the industry with stars such as Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Mabel Normand, Helan and Halvan, brothers Marx, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Woody Allen and Jim Carrey. Until the 1970’s, the western movie was also economically significant, during the 1920’s with stars such as William S. Hart and Tom Mix, then John Wayne, Randolph Scott and Clint Eastwood.
Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Robert Englund (born 1947, Freddie Kreuger in “Terror on Elm Street” films 1984-94) include the big name of the horror movie. James Cagney was identified with the gangster film during the 1930’s, and since the 1970’s, Robert De Niro has become an icon in, among other things. Martin Scorsese’s mafia depictions. For the audience in the 1940’s, Humphrey Bogart was the epitome of the cover in a series of film noir classics, and in the 1970’s Clint Eastwood became the police in front of others at the cinema.
Among female profiled genres, the screwball comedy is interesting for its portraits of accomplished comedians, such as Katharine Hepburn and Carole Lombard. A later heir is Goldie Hawn. The romantic melodrama begins in the silent film series with Lilian Gish, to continue with the audio film with Bette Davis, Joan Crawford and Barbara Stanwyck. In the 1950’s, Douglas Sirk made a series of films about the radar couple Rock Hudson – Jane Wyman. Towards the end of the century belonged to Meryl Streep and Julia Robertsthe most frequently employed. The musical has also long been a bestseller by Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Judy Garland, Gene Kelly and Julie Andrews.
American film has always been cosmopolitan. The companies actively recruited some, others came on their own to escape oppression, such as the emerging fascism of the interwar period. Many have sought adventure, happiness and money. Among Swedes who have made careers in American films are Victor Sjöström, Greta Garbo, Ingrid Bergman, Signe Hasso, Noomi Rapace, Lasse Hallström, Mikael Håfström, Peter Stormare, Stellan Skarsgård and the Oscar-winning sound technicians Per Hallberg and Paul NJ Ottosson (born 1966).
Animation
After pioneers such as Winsor McCay (“Little Nemo”) and Otto Messmer (1892-1983, “Felix the Cat”), Walt Disney (the company founded in 1923) became the leader in animation with figures such as Musse Pigg (1928) and Kalle Anka (1934). Among the competitors were the brothers Max and Dave Fleischer (Betty Boop, 1930; Karl-Alfred, 1933) and Leon Schlesinger Productions (1933, from 1944 Warner Bros. Cartoons), where artists such as Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng and Tex Avery created the series Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, etc.). Later added Walter Lantz (Hacke Hackspett, 1940) and William Hanna andJoseph Barbera (Tom & Jerry, 1940).
In the 1960’s, the animation disappeared into television, for example. Hanna & Barberas “The Flinta Family” (1960–66). Ralph Bakshi’s “Fritz the Cat” (1972) is one of the few cartoon films made alongside Disney. The golden age of the 1990’s for computer animation began with Pixar’s successful movie “Toy Story” (1995, sequels 1999 and 2010). Competitors became, among others, Blue Sky (“Ice Age”, 2002, sequels 2006, 2009, 2012) and PDI / DreamWorks (“Shrek”, 2001, sequels 2004, 2007, 2010). Others with success in the genre were stop motion animator Henry Selick (born 1952, “The Nightmare Before Christmas”, 1993; “Coraline”, 2009). On TV, the Simpsons (1989–) and South Park (1997–) belonged to the drag patches.
Documentary and experimental film
Outside Hollywood, free filmmakers produced documentaries and experimental films using either private funds, sponsorships or money from government agencies. Some of the early milestones of the experimental film include Paul Strands and Charles Sheeler’s “Manhatta” (1921) and Maya Deren’s “Meshes of the Afternoon” (1943).
Robert Flaherty did some of the documentary film’s key works with “Nanook, the Cold Son” (1922) and “Louisiana Story” (1948), and during the Depression, Pare Lorentz made the acclaimed documentary “The Plow That Broke the Plains” (1936) for the Department of Agriculture. The Second World War and its aftermath became a productive period for the documentary with eg. Frank Capra’s “Why We Fight” series 1942–45 and John Houston’s “Let There Be Light” (1946).
In the avant-garde group New American Cinema were members such as Kenneth Anger (“Fireworks”, 1947; “Scorpio Rising”, 1963), Stan Brakhage (“Dog Star Man”, 1964), Andy Warhol (“Chelsea Girls”, 1966) and Michael Snow (born 1929, “Wavelength”, 1967). Styling in the documentary was the Direct Cinema movement around Robert Drew (1924–2014) and his feature film “Primary” (1960). The movement included DA Pennebaker (1925–2019, “Don’t Look Back”, 1967), brothers Albert and David Maysles (“Salesman”, 1967; “Gray Gardens”, 1976) and Fredrick Wiseman (“Titicut Follies”, 1967).
The experimental film moved into the art galleries in the 1980’s with the video art and got a commercial marketing within music video channels such as MTV. The documentary, on the other hand, returned to the cinemas with directors such as Godfrey Reggio (born 1940, “Koyaanisqatsi”, 1983), Errol Morris (“The Thin Blue Line”, 1988; “Fog of War”, 2003) and Michael Moore (“Roger and I”, 1989; “Fahrenheit 9/11”, 2004).
