"One Earth, four or five worlds: Reflection on contemporary History."

The Mexican poet Octavio Paz is one of the outstanding critics of our time. "My passion is poetry and my occupation literature, he says, Why is he writing a book of this nature-an examination, a judgement of the upheavals of our age? The writer should be a sniper, he should endure solitude, he should know himself to bea marginal being. It is both a curse and a blessing that we writers are marginal" He remains a radical, but a radical who rejects ideology.

He has seen the world-as a diplomat, a traveller and a teacher. He has engaged clear-headedly in its controversies. It is Paz's rare distinction to write as an insider with passion and detachment.

He divides his essay into two parts. "The first contains five chapters on the changes of opinion and outlook in the nations of the Old World; the crisis of imperial democracy in the United States; its counterpart, the crisis of the system of bureaucratic domination in Russia; the revolt of particularisms, above all in the countries on the periphery; and modemization, its dangers and its difficulties. The second part looks in detail at Latin America.