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Almost invariably, late-colonial Caracas has been described as a society full of tensions and a colony at odds with the imperial order. This study, in contrast, portrays a colony, which grew, prospered and matured within the confines of Empire. It depicts the late 1700s as the golden age of caraqueño colonial society and suggests that it was no accident that this late renaissance created an environment which bred the self-confident men who led much of Spanish America to independence. The causes of the independence struggle, and the violence, which accompanied it, are considered in the context of the imperial crisis provoked by Napoleon's invasion of Spain. The findings of this study are based on an exceptionally varied array of new data on the economy and society of late eighteenth-century Caracas, of which a collection of 800 wills is the most impressive.
Widespread violence, legal chicanery and ruthless profiteering have come to characterise the expansion of the agricultural frontier in Brazil. With the advance of this frontier, the pioneering peasants, on the one hand, and large landowners and large economic enterprise, on the other, have become locked in an increasingly bitter struggle for land. In his book, Joe Foweraker draws on extensive empirical research to demonstrate the dimensions and dynamics of the struggle. It is his contention that the process can only be understood in relation to the patterns of economic accumulation in the national society and to the typical forms of political intervention on the frontier. In this way the argument moves beyond descriptive, moral or realpolitik explanations of the political violence and bureaucratic malpractice on the frontier, and integrates these elements into a theoretical account of accumulation and class struggle on the frontier, and of the characteristic mediations of this struggle.
This book is the first to describe the role of business interest groups, also known as pressure groups, in the development of Brazil during the nineteenth century. Business interest groups strongly affected the modernization and prosperity of agriculture, the pace of industrialisation, and patterns of communications. Although they sometimes initiated enterprises themselves, they most affected development by influencing the scope and direction of government aid. The most important of business interest groups, the commercial associations, also may be seen as institutions through which ties of dependency to better-developed nations overseas were maintained.
Much of the so-called Age of Santa Anna in the history of independent Mexico remains a mystery and no decade is less well understood than the years from 1835 to 1846. In 1834, the ruling elite of middle class hombres de bien concluded that a highly centralised republican government was the only solution to the turmoil and factionalism that had characterised the new nation since its emancipation from Spain in 1821. The central republic was thus set up in 1835, but once again civil strife, economic stagnation, and military coups prevailed until 1846, when a disastrous war with the United States began in which Mexico was to lose half of its national territory. This study explains the course of events and analyses why centralism failed, the issues and personalities involved, and the underlying pressures of economic and social change.
The collapse of this economy in August 1914 and its subsequent restructuring, therefore, created extremely testing conditions for peripheral countries. These conditions and the way in which they were dealt with help to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the variants of the primary-export-based capitalist development which had taken root here. Also, as had happened in Europe, the war witnessed far-reaching political and social changes in the region, associated in the main with the emergence of a more vocal urban middle class and a more combative working class. By considering within a fully comparative perspective some of the main elements of both economic and socio-political change in four major Latin American countries during the war years, this study provides many important new insights into the nature and limitations of pre-war growth as well as the significance of the many changes brought by the war.
Studies in Spanish American regional history have, as yet, made little attempt to incorporate the struggles for independence within the context of provincial society and politics viewed over the broader period that spans the late colonial and early national experience of Latin America. This book attempts a new perspective: it emphasises the provincial milieu and popular participation in its varied forms, often ambiguous and contradictory. The central aim is to examine social conflicts, chiefly in the Mexican provinces of Puebla, Guadalajara, Michoacán, and Guanajuato from the middle of the eighteenth century, and to assess their relationship to the widespread insurgency of the second decade of the nineteenth century.
The Indian nobility of the Andes - largely descended from the Inca monarchs and other pre-conquest lords - occupied a crucial economic and political position in late colonial Andean society, a position widely accepted as legitimate until the Túpac Amaru rebellion. Shadows of Empire traces the history of this late colonial elite and examines the pre-conquest and colonial foundations of their privilege and authority. It brings to light the organization and the ideology of the Indian nobility in the bishopric of Cusco in the decades before the rebellion, and uses this nobility as a lens through which to study the internal organization and tension of late colonial Indian communities. The work analyzes the significance of the collapse of the Indian nobility, both repudiated by the Indian commons and the crown in the last years of Spanish rule, following the rebellion to the emergence of the creole-dominated republican order after 1825.
The Atlantic slave trade brought to Cuba the African slaves who created the dramatic transformation of the island from a relative backwater of Spain's colonial empire in the mid-eighteenth century to the world's richest plantation colony one hundred years later. Britain played a vital role in this transformation. British slave traders were the chief suppliers of Cuba's slaves in the eighteenth century; in the nineteenth century Britain became the greatest threat to Cuba's prosperity when she attempted to make Spain follow her example and abolish the slave trade. Dr Murray's study, based on a thorough examination of British and Spanish records, reveals how important British influence was on the course of Cuban history.
This book examines the relationship between the indigenous peoples of northern Ecuador and disease, especially those infections introduced by Europeans during the sixteenth century. It addresses an important and often overlooked element in the history of Amerindian populations: their biological adaptability and resilience. But it is more than a history of disease incidents, medical responses, and population trends. The history of the biological experience under colonial rule. It differs from other studies in the field by its emphasis on the relationship between biological and social responses.
This is a detailed study of British influence in Brazil as a theme within the larger story of modernization. The British were involved at key points in the initial stages of modernization. Their hold upon the import–export economy tended to slow down industrialization, and there were other areas in which their presence acted as a brake upon Brazilian modernization. But the British also fostered change. British railways provided primary stimulus to the growth of coffee exports, and since the British did not monopolize coffee production, a large proportion of the profits remained in Brazilian hands for other uses. Furthermore, the burgeoning coffee economy shattered traditional economic, social and political relationships, opening up the way for other areas of growth. The British role was not confined to economic development. They also contributed to the growth of 'a modern world-view'. Spencerianism and the idea of progress, for instance, were not exotic and meaningless imports, but an integral part of the transformation Brazil was experiencing.
In this book, Leon Zamosc provides an account of the history of ANUC and its struggle on three main fronts: for land, for the defence of the colonists, and for the protection of smallholders. The main focus of the book is on the land struggles. Professor Zamosc adopts a structural perspective, examining the agrarian contradictions that propelled the peasant struggles, the changing relationship between the peasant movement and the state, and the political and ideological content of the peasant challenge. He explores these issues in the light of the shifting patterns of class alignments and antagonisms that marked the rise and decline of peasant radicalism during the 1970s, and offers some suggestions about the significance of ANUC's struggles for the understanding of peasant movements in general.
An analysis of marriage patterns in nineteenth-century Cuba, a society with a large black population the majority of which was held in slavery but which also included considerable numbers of freedmen. Dr Martinez-Alier uses as her main source of evidence the records in Havana of administrative and judicial proceedings of cases in which parents opposed a marriage, of cases involving elopement, and of cases of interracial marriage. Dr Martinez-Alier develops a model of the relation between sexual values and social inequality. She considers the importance of the value of virginity in supporting the hierarchy of Cuban society, based on ascription rather than achievement. As a consequence of the high evaluation of virginity, elopement was often a successful means of overcoming parental dissent to an unequal marriage. However, in cases of interracial elopement, the seduced coloured woman had little chance of redress through marriage. In this battle of the sexes and the races, the free coloured women and men played roles and acquired values which explain why matrifocality became characteristic of black free families.
This study of relations between Latin America and the Third (Communist) International or Comintern examines the rather patchy start the organisation made in the region and analyses the definitely and, for some Latin American Communists, rather humiliatingly, peripheral position occupied by Latin America in the organisation's doctrinal formulations. It demonstrates that Latin America was restricted to a supporting role in the world revolution espoused by Moscow, indeed Latin American Communists were expected to pay attention to the insignificant Communist Party of the United States. Nevertheless, the Comintern did put into play a number of important political and theoretical concepts, some of which were taken up by far more successful, and often anti-Communist, political movements in the region. Based on a wide variety of Latin American and European sources, this lively and well argued account will interest historians of the international Communist movement as well as students of modern Latin America.
In this book, Marco Palacios explores the history of Colombia as a coffee-producer, and the implications that coffee has had for its economy, society, and politics since the middle of the nineteenth century. He provides a history of the commercialization of the crop, and relates it to the general evolution of Colombian society, an evolution often determined by coffee even in areas remote from the crop itself. The book also covers the development of the specific institutions that have been set up to manage coffee affairs, and their role in the Colombian state. Since the last quarter of the nineteenth century coffee has been the mainstay of the Colombian economy, and no historian, economist, or sociologist interested in the country can escape its importance; nor can anyone interested in the commodity ignore Colombia. This is the first work on the subject to appear in English.
This case study of the structure of power and ruling-class domination in the heart of the sertão of Northeast Brazil is based upon six field trips over a period of fifteen years. Analysis of the political economy of Juazeiro, Bahia, and Petrolina, Pernambuco - two contiguous towns along the São Francisco River - focuses on the history of patriarchal families, ruling class, and patrimonial governments. Family dominance is related to the rise of the Coelhos in Petrolina and the decline of the Vianas in Juazeiro. Agressive tactics and links to Recife allowed the Coelhos to expand and assume control over most commerce in Petrolina and neighbouring municipalities to Juazeiro. In both situations the intervention of the state in the region, usually bolstered by international credits, affected traditional standards of living. The construction of the Sobradinho Dam, for example, brought problems for small farmers along the banks of the São Francisco who could no longer count on the natural flow of river water. State policy also favored corporations to the detriment of small producers on cooperative farms.
Spanish colonialism exacted a high price from its subjects, promoting economic dependency as the accompaniment of a more vital, diversified economy based on a mix of industry and agriculture. The result was a legacy of underdevelopment, domestic social inequities, and economic subordination to the North Atlantic world. This volume examines how Spanish colonial policies contributed to profound socioeconomic changes, leading to patterns of underdevelopment in the Kingdom of Quito (modern Ecuador) from 1690 to 1830.
After looking briefly at the reasons for the oil fraternity's choice of Venezuela, the book examines the relationship between Gómez's government and the oil companies during this period. It deals with the government's initial encouragement, legislation, and unsuccessful attempts to increase production from the small number of companies operating before 1919. The important local links between the oil companies and vested interests, including Gómez's family and entourage, are examined to determine the level of interaction between the two groups. The socio-economic effects of the companies are looked at in detail to ascertain their impact, both regionally and nationally, on agriculture, trade, currency fluctuations, industry and politics. Finally, the government's reaction to this and the degree of control exercised over the exploitation of its natural resources are examined.
This book describes and analyses economic and political developments in Colombia during the final century of Spanish rule. Its purpose is threefold: first, to provide a general portrait of Colombian society during the late colonial period, showing the character of economic, social, and political life in the territory's principal regions; second, to assess the impact on the region of European imperialist expansion during the eighteenth century; and third, to provide a context for understanding the causes of independence. The book offers the only available survey of Colombian history and historiography for this period.
Uruguay was once the most stable democracy in Latin America, but in 1973 the military seized power for the first time. Political parties did not disappear, however, even though they were made illegal. By the 1980s Uruguay's generals were anxious to find a way to withdraw from power. Yet they continued to insist on certain guarantees as the price for holding elections. The issue of whether to make any concessions to the military came to divide the country's three major parties - the Blancos, the Colorados, and the Left. Nevertheless, the last two parties eventually did agree to a pact in July 1984. The military agreed to return to the barracks and the politicians made an implicit commitment not to prosecute them for their past human rights violations.
In this book, Roberto Cortés Conde describes and explains the decline of the Argentine economy in the twentieth century, its evolution, and its consequences. At the beginning of the century, the economy grew at a sustained rate, a modern transport system united the country, a massive influx of immigrants populated the land, and education expanded, leading to a dramatic fall in illiteracy. However, by the second half of the century, growth not only stalled, but a dramatic reversal occurred, and the perspectives in the median and long term turned negative, and growth eventually collapsed. This work of historical analysis defines the most important problems faced by the Argentine economy. Some of these problems were fundamental, while others occurred without being properly considered, but in their entirety, Cortés Conde demonstrates how they had a deleterious effect on the country.