Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T07:49:07.095Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Latin American Business History since 1965: A View from North of the Border

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

H. V. Nelles
Affiliation:
H. V. Nelles is professor of history at York University, Ontario.

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Introduction
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Baughman, James P., “Recent Trends in the Business History of Latin America,” Business History Review 39 (1965): 425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 Bergquist, Charles W., “Recent United States Studies in Latin American History: Trends since 1965,” Latin American Research Review 9 (1974): 34.Google Scholar Notable exceptions to this generalization would include Tannenbaum, Frank, Slave and Citizen (New York, 1947)Google Scholar, Hanke, Lewis, The Spanish Struggle for Justice in the Conquest of America (Philadelphia, 1949)Google Scholar, and Freyre, Gilberto, The Masters and the Slaves (New York, 1946).Google Scholar

3 The most useful bibliographic aids in the field of business and economic history would include Conde, Roberto Cortés and Stein, Stanley J., eds., Latin America: A Guide to Economic History, 1830–1930 (Berkeley, Calif., 1977)Google Scholar; Delorme's, Robert L. two collections, Latin America: Social Science Information Sources, 1967–1979 (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1981)Google Scholar and Latin America, 1979–1983: A Social Science Bibliography (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1984); the Handbook of Latin American Studies (Austin, Tex., annual), now in its 46th volume; Griffin, Charles C., ed., Latin America: A Guide to the Historical Literature (Austin, Tex., 1971)Google Scholar, and the Catalogue of the Latin American Collection of the University of Texas at Austin (Boston, 1969), 3 vols., with five supplements to date: 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, and 1982. See also the several bibliographies of Ph.D. dissertations in the Latin American area published at intervals by University Microfilms International.

4 These trends are quantified by Bergquist, “Recent United States Studies,” and deplored by Morse, Richard M., “The Care and Grooming of Latin American Historians or: Stop the Computers, I Want To Get Off,” in Latin America in Transition, ed. Ross, Stanley R. (Albany, N.Y., 1970).Google Scholar For a useful overview of Latin American economic history written during this period of transition in the early 1970s, see Stein, Stanley J. and Hunt, Shane, “Principal Currents in the Economic Historiography of Latin America,” Journal of Economic History 31 (1971): 222–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 Brading, D. A., Miners and Merchants in Bourbon Mexico, 1763–1810 (Cambridge, England, 1971), 21.Google Scholar

6 Chauim, Hugette and Chaunu, Pierre, Séville et l'Atlantique 1504–1650 (Paris, 19551959), 8 vols.Google Scholar; Lynch, John, Spain Under the Hapsburgs, 2d ed. (Oxford, 1969, 1981), 2 vols.Google Scholar; Elliot, J. H., The Old World and the New, 1492–1650 (Cambridge, England, 1970).Google Scholar

7 Both Ithaca, N.Y., 1966 and 1972, respectively.

8 Brading, , Miners and Merchants; James Lockhart, Spanish Peru, 1532–1560 (Madison, Wis., 1968).Google Scholar

9 Cambridge, England, 1978, and Cambridge, Mass., 1979.

10 Fifer, J. V., “The Empire Builders: A History of the Bolivian Rubber Boom and the Rise of the House of Suarez,” Journal of Latin American Studies 2 (1970): 113–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; John Mayo, “Before the Nitrate Era: British Commission Houses and the Chilean Economy, 1851–1880,” ibid. 11 (1979): 283–302; John C. Super, “Partnership and Profit in the Early Andean Trade: The Experiences of Quito Merchants, 1580–1610,” ibid., 265–81; Bromley, R. J. and Symanski, R., “Marketplace Trade In Latin America,” Latin American Research Reviews 9 (1974): 338Google Scholar; Jay Kinsbruner, “The Pulperos of Caracas and San Juan during the First Half of the Nineteenth Century” ibid. 13 (1978): 65–86; Hoberman, Louisa, “Merchants in Seventeenth Century Mexico City: A Preliminary Portrait,” Hispanic American Historical Review 57 (1977): 479503CrossRefGoogle Scholar; R. Flory and D. G. Smith, “Bahian Merchants and Planters in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries,” ibid. 58 (1978): 571–94; Elizabeth Kuznesof, “The Role of the Merchants in the Economic Development of Sao Paulo, 1765–1850,” ibid. 60(1980): 571–92; Paul B. Goodwin, Jr., “Anglo-Argentine Commercial Relations: A Private Sector View, 1922–1943,” ibid. 61 (1981): 29–51; John Kicza, “The Great Families of Mexico: Elite Maintenance and Business Practices in Late Colonial Mexico City,” ibid. 62 (1982): 429–57.

11 Sauer, Carl The Early Spanish Main (Berkeley, Calif., 1969)Google Scholar; MacLeod, Murdo J., Spanish Central America: A Socio-Economic History, 1520–1720 (Berkeley, Calif., 1973).Google Scholar

12 Bergquist, Charles W., Coffee and Conflict in Colombia 1886–1910 (Durham, N.C., 1978), vii.Google Scholar

13 Representative examples would include Bergquist, Coffee and Conflict; Bergad, Laird, “Coffee and Rural Proletarianization in Puerto Rico, 1864–1898,” Journal of Latin American Studies 15 (1983): 83100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tom Brass, “Coffee and Rural Proletarianization, a Comment,” ibid. 16(1984): 143–56; Smith, Peter H., Politics and Beef in Argentina: Patterns of Conflict and Change (New York, 1969)Google Scholar; Scobie, James R., Revolution on the Pampas: A Social History of Argentine Wheat, 1860–1910 (Austin, Tex., 1964)Google Scholar; Brading, Miners and Merchants, Bakewell, P. J., Silver Mining in Colonial Mexico, Zacatecas, 1546–1700 (Cambridge, England, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fisher, J. R., Silver Mines and Silver Miners in Colonial Peru, 1776–1824 (Liverpool, England, 1977)Google Scholar; Sims-Taylor, K., Sugar and the Underdevelopment of North Eastern Brazil, 1500–1970 (Gainesville, Fla., 1978)Google Scholar; Sheridan, Richard B., Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623–1775 (Baltimore, 1974)Google Scholar; Eisenberg, Peter L., The Sugar Industry in Pernambuco: Modernization without Change (Berkeley, Calif., 1974)Google Scholar; Hoernel, R. B., “Sugar and Social Change in Oriente, Cuba, 1898–1946,” Journal of Latin American Studies 9 (1977): 215–49Google Scholar; Adamson, Alan, Sugar Without Slaves: The Political Economy of British Guiana, 1838–1904 (New Haven, Conn., 1972)Google Scholar; Solberg, Carl, Oil and Nationalism in Argentina (Stanford, Calif., 1979)Google Scholar; Smith, Peter S., Oil and Politics in Modern Brazil (Toronto, 1976)Google Scholar; Grayson, G. W., The Politics of Mexican Oil (Pittsburgh, Pa., 1981)Google Scholar; Rippy, Merrill, Oil and the Mexican Revolution (Leiden, 1972)Google Scholar; Baloyra, Enrique, “Oil Policies and Budgets in Venezuela, 1938–1968,” Latin American Research Review 9 (1974): 2872Google Scholar; Blakemore, Harold, British Nitrates and Chilean Politics, 1886–1896 (London, 1974)Google Scholar; Greenhill, R. G. and Miller, Rory R., “The Peruvian Government and the Nitrate Trade, 1873–1879,” Journal of Latin American Studies 5 (1973): 107–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar; O'Brien, Thomas, The Nitrate Industry and Chile's Crucial Transition, 1870–1891 (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; Ortega, Luis, “Nitrates, Chilean Entrepreneurs and the Origins of the War of the Pacific,” Journal of Latin American Studies 16 (1984): 337–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Mathew, W. M., The House of Gibbs and the Peruvian Guano Monopoly (London, 1981)Google Scholar; Montéon, Michael, Chile in the Nitrate Era: The Evolution of Economic Dependence, 1880–1930 (Madison, Wis., 1982)Google Scholar; Hamnett, B. R., Politics and Trade in Southern Mexico, 1750–1821 (Cambridge, England, 1971)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Resor, R. R., “Rubber in Brazil: Dominance and Collapse,” Business History Review 51 (1977): 341–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14 Curtin, Philip, The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census (Madison, Wis., 1969).Google Scholar

15 Lovejoy, Paul E., “The Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade: A Synthesis,” Journal of African History 22 (1982): 473501.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

16 Klein, Herbert, The Middle Passage: Comparative Studies in the Atlantic Slave Trade (Princeton N.J., 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palmer, Colin, Slaves of a White God: Blacks in Mexico, 1570–1650 (Cambridge, Mass., 1976)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Human Cargoes: The British Slave Trade to Spanish America, 1700–1739 (Urbana, Ill., 1981). See also Sharp, William Frederick, Slavery on the Spanish Frontier: The Colombian Choco, 1680–1810 (Norman, Okla., 1976).Google Scholar See also Gemery, H. and Hogendorn, J., eds., The Uncommon Market: Essays in the Economic History of the Atlantic Slave Trade (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

17 Stein, R., The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century: An Old Regime Business (Madison, Wis., 1983)Google Scholar; Higman, B. W., Slave Population and Economy in Jamaica, 1807–1834 (Cambridge, England, 1976)Google Scholar; Dunn, R., Sugar and Slaves (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Sheridan, R. B., Sugar and Slavery: An Economic History of the British West Indies, 1623–1775 (Baltimore, 1974)Google Scholar; Murray, D. R., “Statistics of the Slave Trade to Cuba, 1790–1867,” Journel of Latin American Studies 3 (1971): 131–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martins, A. and Martins, R. B., “Slavery in a Non-Export Economy: Nineteenth-Century Minas Gerais Revisited,” Hispanic American Historical Review 63 (1983): 537–68, with commentary.Google Scholar

18 Respectively, Cambridge, England, 1978; Stanford, Calif., 1980; and Cambridge, England, 1977.

19 Ferns, H. S., Britain and Argentina in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford, 1960), 2930.Google Scholar

20 London, 1972.

21 Ferns, H. S., Britain and Argentina, and “British Informal Empire in Argentina, 1806–1914,” Past and Present 4 (1953): 6675.CrossRefGoogle Scholar The book is more equivocal on this point than the article.

22 The Rise of Free Trade Imperialism: Classical Political Economy, The Empire of Free Trade and Imperialism, 1750–1850 (Cambridge, England, 1970); Imperialism: The Robinson and Gallagher Controversy (New York, 1976).

23 Platt, D. C. M., Finance, Trade and Politics in British Foreign Policy, 1815–1914 (Oxford, 1968).Google Scholar

24 Platt, Latin America and British Trade, 305–12.

25 Platt, D. C. M., ed., Business Imperialism, 1840–1930: An Inquiry Based on British Experience in Latin America (Oxford, 1977), 6.Google Scholar

26 Mathew, , House of Gibbs; Graham, Britain and the Onset of Modernization in Brazil, 1850–1914 (Cambridge, England, 1968)Google Scholar; Wright, W. R., British Owned Railways in Argentina (Austin, Tex., 1974)Google Scholar; Goodwin, P. B., “The Central Argentine Railway and the Economic Development of Argentina, 1854–1881,” Hispanic American Historical Review 57 (1977): 613–32CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gootenberg, P., “The Social Origins of Protectionism and Free Trade in Nineteenth Century Lima,” Journal of Latin American Studies 14 (1982): 329–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greenhill and Miller, “The Peruvian Government and the Nitrate Trade, 1873–1879,” 107–31; Hillman, John, “The Emergence of the Tin Industry in Bolivia,” Journal of Latin American Studies 16 (1984): 403–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Herna Horna, “Transportation Modernization and Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth Century Colombia,” ibid. 14 (1982): 33–54; Charles Jones, “Business Imperialism and Argentina, 1875–1900: A Theoretical Note,” ibid. 12 (1980): 437–44; Rory Miller, “The Making of the Grace Contract: British Bondholders and the Peruvian Government, 1885–1890,” ibid. 9 (1977): 73–100. Essays in the Business History Review reflecting the influence of this school would include Miller, Rory, “Small Business and the Peruvian Oil Industry,” Business History Review 61 (1982): 400–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robert Oppenheimer, “National Capital and National Development: Financing Chile's Central Valley Railroads,” ibid.: 54–75; and Winthrop Wright, “Foreign Owned Railways in Argentina,” ibid. 41 (1967): 62–93.

27 Randall, Robert W., Real del Monte: A British Mining Venture in Mexico (Austin, Tex., 1972).Google Scholar

28 Tischendorf, Alfred, Great Britain and Mexico in the Era of Porfirio Diaz (Durham, N.C., 1961)Google Scholar; Rippy, J. Fred, British Investments in Latin America (Hamden, Conn., 1966).Google Scholar

29 Stone, Irving, “British Long Term Investment in Latin America, 1865–1913,” Business History Review 42 (1968): 311–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; May, Herbert K. and Arena, José Antonio Fernandez, Impact of Foreign Investment in Mexico (Washington, D.C., 1972).Google Scholar

30 Edelstein, Michael, Overseas Investment in the Age of High Imperialism: The United Kingdom, 1850–1914 (New York, 1982)Google Scholar; Armstrong, Christopher and Nelles, H. V., “A Curious Capital Flow: Canadian Investment in Mexico, 1902–1910,” Business History Review 58 (1984): 178203.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

31 Wilkins, Mira, The Emergence of Multinational Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass., 1970)Google Scholar, The Maturing of Multinational Enterprise (Cambridge, Mass., 1974).

32 See for example Leff, Nathaniel H., Underdevelopment and Development in Brazil, Vol. 1. Economic Structure and Change, 1822–1947 (London, 1982), xv.Google Scholar

33 Hirschman, Albert O., The Strategy of Economic Development (New Haven, Conn., 1958).Google Scholar

34 Conde, Roberto Cortés, The First Stages of Modernization in Spanish America (New York, 1974)Google Scholar; Díaz-Alejandro, Carlos F., Essays on the Economic History of the Argentine Republic (New Haven, Conn., 1970)Google Scholar; Furtado, Celso, Economic Development of Latin America: Historical Background and Contemporary Problems, 2d ed. (Cambridge, England, 1970)Google Scholar; Hansen, Roger D., The Politics of Mexican Development (Baltimore, 1971)Google Scholar; Dean, Warren, The Industrialization of Sao Paulo, 1880–1945 (Austin. Tex., 1969).Google Scholar

35 McGreevev, William P., An Economic History of Colombia, 1845–1930 (Cambridge, England, 1971).Google Scholar

36 Brown, Jonathan C.. A Socioeconomic History of Argentina, 1776–1860 (Cambridge, England, 1979).Google Scholar On the history of staples theory in Canada see Nelles, H. V., “Looking Backward: Interpreting Canadian Economic Development,” in Se Connaitre: Politics and Culture in Canada, ed. Lennox, John (Toronto, 1985), 1744.Google Scholar

37 See the symposium she organized and contributed to on the subject “Historical Statistics,” Latin American Research Review 13 (1978); 69–222; see also Platt, D. C. M., “Problems in the Interpretation of Foreign Trade Statistics before 1914,” Journal of Latin American Studies 3 (1971): 119–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38 Randall, Laura, A Comparative Economic History of Latin America, 1500–1914, 4 vols.: Mexico, Argentina, Brazil, and Peru (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1977).Google Scholar

39 Randall, Laura, An Economic History of Argentina in the Twentieth Century (New York, 1978).Google Scholar

40 Leff, Underdevelopment and Development in Brazil.

41 Coatsworth, John H., Growth Against Development: The Economic Impact of Railroads in Porfirian Mexico (DeKalb, Ill., 1981).Google Scholar See also his “Obstacles to Economic Growth in Nineteenth Century Mexico,” American Historical Review 83 (1978): 80–100.

42 Randall, Economic History of Argentina. 5; Guy, Donna J., “Dependency, the Credit Market, and Argentine Industrialization, 1860–1940,” Business History Review 58 (1984): 532–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Leff, Underdevelopment and Development in Brazil, 216.

44 For a symposium examination of the impact of the Depression see Thorp, Rosemary, ed., Latin America in the 1930's: The Role of the Periphery in the World Crisis (New York, 1984).Google Scholar

45 The Politics of Brazilian Development, 1930–1954 (Stanford, Calif., 1970). See also Winpenny, J. T.. Brazil, Manufactured Exports and Government Policy (London, 1972).Google Scholar

46 Prebisch, Raúl, Change and Development (New York, 1971)Google Scholar for the revised formulation of the thesis. For brief reviews of the policy of import substitution industrialization see Baer, Werner. “Import Substitution and Industrialization in Latin America: Experiences and Interpretations,” Latin American Research Review 7 (1972): 95122Google Scholar, and “The Economics of Prebisch and the ECLA,” Economic Development and Cultural Change 10 (1962): 169–82; Bath, C. R. and James, D. D., “Dependency Analysis of Latin America: Some Criticisms, Some Suggestions,” Latin American Research Review 11 (1976): 354.Google Scholar

47 See, for surveys of this literature, Bath and James, “Dependency Analysis,” 95–122; Chilcote, Ronald H., “Dependency: A Critical Synthesis of the Literature,” Latin American Perspectives 1 (1974): 429CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Halperin-Donghi, Tulio, “Dependency Theory and Latin American Historiography,” Latin American Research Review 17 (1982): 115–30Google Scholar; and Robert Packenham's contribution to this symposium, “Plus Ça Change …: The English Edition of Cardoso and Faletto's Dependencia y desarrollo en America Latina,” 131–51.

48 Frank, Andre Gunder, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York, 1967).Google Scholar

49 See, for example, Chilcote, Ronald H., Dependency and Marxism. Toward Resolution of the Debate (Boulder, Colo., 1982).Google Scholar For a Canadian perspective on this debate see the symposium edited by Drache, D. and Kroker, A., “Beyond Dependency,” Canadian Journal of Political and Social Theory 7 (1983).Google Scholar

50 Cardoso, Fernando Henrique, “The Consumption of Dependency Theory in the United States,” Latin American Research Review 12 (1977): 724.Google Scholar

51 See, for example, Ray, David, “The Dependency Model of Latin American Underdevelopment: Three Basic Fallacies,” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 15 (1973): 420CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Smith, Tony, “The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory,” World Politics 31 (1979): 247–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

52 New York, 1970.

53 Thorp, Rosemary and Bertram, Geoffrey, Peru, 1890–1977: Growth and Policy in an Open Economy (New York, 1978).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

54 Montéon, Chile in the Nitrate Era; Moran, T. H., Multinational Corporations and the Politics of Dependence: Copper in Chile (Princeton, N.J., 1974).Google Scholar

55 Gereffi, G. and Evans, P., “Transnational Corporations, Dependent Development and State Policy in the Semi-Periphery: A Comparison of Brazil and Mexico,” Latin American Research Review 16 (1981): 3164Google Scholar; Greenfield, G. M., “Dependency and the Urban Experience: Sao Paulo's Public Service Sector, 1885–1913,” Journal of Latin American Studies 10 (1978): 3759CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and E. W. Ridings, “Business, Nationality and Dependency in Late Nineteenth-Century Brazil,” ibid. 14 (1982): 55–96. See also Peter Evans's modification of dependency theory to analyze recent Brazilian development, Dependent Development: The Alliance of Multinational, State and Local Capital in Brazil (Princeton, N.J., 1979).

56 “Dependency in Nineteenth Century Latin America: A Historian Objects,” Latin American Research Review 15 (1980): 4–29, and the ensuing, somewhat uninspired debate with the Steins, 131–50.

57 Brading, David, “Review Essay,” Journal of Latin American Studies 9 (1977): 154–57.Google Scholar In this same review he went on to regret in conclusion that “the once fertile hypotheses of the Dependency model [had] already petrified into self-evident theorems, or best to say, dogmas of faith learnt and recited by rote.”