The Cambridge Economic History of Latin America: Volume 1, The Colonial Era and the Short Nineteenth Century

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. Volume one includes the colonial and independence eras up to 1850.

Volume one 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 post-colonial economies. Finally, it analyses of the costs and benefits of independence.

Part I. The Economic Background: 1. The global economic history of European expansion overseas Patrick O'Brien; 2. African connections with American colonization Patrick Manning; 3. The pre-Columbian economy Rebecca Storey; Part II. Natural Resources and Factor Endowments: 4. Land use and the transformation of the environment Eleanor Melville; 5. The demographic impact of colonization Linda Newson; 6. Labor systems John Monteiro; Part III. Economic Organization and the Sectoral Performance: 7. Political economy and economic organization John Coatsworth; 8. Agriculture and land tenure Carlos Sempat Assadourian; 9. The mining industry Enrique Tandeter; 10. Pre-modern manufacturing Aurura Gómez; 11. Commercial monopolies and external trade Graciela Márquez; 12. Money, taxes, and finance Carlos Marichal; Part IV. The Economic Impact of Independence: 13. The economic consequences of independence Leandro Prados de las Escosura.

Provides an indispensable reference work for anyone interested in Latin America's economic development. It includes work from diverse perspectives, disciplines and methodologies to provide a synthesis of the past two decades of exciting new research on the region's economic past.

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. He is a Director of the new India Investment Trust. He is the editor of The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence, Second Edition (2003) and 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 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 Econtradas: Cuba y los Estados Unidos, Edited with Rafael Hernandez (2001).
Roberto Cortés Conde is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Universidad de Sand Andrés in Buenos Aires, Roberto Cortés Conde is Professor Emeritus of Economics at Universidad de Sand Andrés 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 Economía Argentina en el Largo Plazo (Siglos xix yxx)(1997), Transferring Wealth and Power from the Old to the New Wold: Monetary and Fiscal Instututions in the 17th Through the 19th Century (2002), edited with Michael D. Bordo, and Historia Económica Mundial (2003).