The Cambridge Economic History Of Latin America: Volume 1, The Colonial Era And The Short Nineteenth Century

the cambridge economic history of latin america The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America provides access to the current state of expert knowledge about Latin America’s economic past from the Spanish conquest to the beginning of the twenty-first century. It includes work from diverse perspectives, disciplines, and methodologies from qualitative historical analysis of policies and institutions to cliometrics, the new institutional economics, and environmental sciences. Each chapter provides a comparative analysis of economic trends, sectoral development, or the evolution of the institutional and policy environment. Volume I includes the colonial and independence eras up to 1850, linking Latin America’s economic history to the pre-Hispanic, European, and African background. It also synthesizes knowledge on the human and environmental impact of the Spanish conquest, the evolution of colonial economic institutions, and the performance of key sectors of the colonial and immediate postcolonial economies. Finally, it analyzes the costs and benefits of independence. Volume II treats the “long twentieth century” from the onset of modern economic growth to the present. Victor Bulmer-Thomas is the Director of Chatham House, the London home of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, and Professor Emeritus at the University of London. From 1992 to 1998, he was Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies (now the Institute for the Study of the Americas) at London University. He is the author of The Economic History of Latin America since Independence (Second edition, 2003) and editor of Regional Integration in Latin America and the Caribbean: The Political Economy of Open Regionalism (2001). John H. Coatsworth is Monroe Gutman Professor of Latin American Affairs in the Department of History at Harvard University. In addition to serving as the Director of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies since its founding in 1994, he chairs the Harvard University Committee on Human Rights Studies. His recent books include Latin America and the World Economy since 1800, edited with Alan M. Taylor (1998), and Culturas encontradas: Cuba y los Estados Unidos, edited with Rafael Hern´andez (2001). Roberto Cort´es Conde is Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Universidad de San Andr´es in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and a corresponding member of the Royal Academy of History of Spain. A former Guggenheim Fellow, he has published numerous books and scholarly articles. His most recent books include La econom´ıa argentina en el largo plazo (siglos xix y xx) (1997); Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to the New World: Monetary and Fiscal Institutions in the 17th through the 19th Centuries (2002), edited with Michael D. Bordo; and Historia econ´omica mundial (2003). Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 i the cambridge economic history of latin america volume i The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century volume ii The Long Twentieth Century Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 ii the cambridge economic history of latin america volume i The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century Edited by victor bulmer-thomas Royal Institute of International Affairs john h. coatsworth Harvard University roberto cortés conde