Order Against Progress

Order Against Progress

Author: William Roderick Summerhill

Publisher:

Published: 2003

Total Pages: 297

ISBN-13: 0804732248

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This study presents a new and provocative picture of the impact of railroads on the Brazilian economy. How did foreign investment in infrastructure affect a relatively backward Latin American economy? The author engages this long-standing issue in Latin American history by applying the methods of the “new economic history” to the study of Brazilian railway development.


A Social History of Mexico's Railroads

A Social History of Mexico's Railroads

Author: Teresa Van Hoy

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Published: 2008-02-21

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1461700310

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Largely absent from our history books is the social history of railroad development in nineteenth-century Mexico, which promoted rapid economic growth that greatly benefited elites but also heavily impacted rural and provincial Mexican residents in communities traversed by the rails. In this beautifully written and original book, Teresa Van Hoy connects foreign investment in Mexico, largely in railroad development, with its effects on the people living in the isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico's region of greatest ethnic diversity. Students will be drawn to a fascinating cast of characters, as muleteers, artisans, hacienda peons, convict laborers, dockworkers, priests, and the rural police force (rurales) join railroad regulars in this rich social history. New empirical evidence, some drawn from two private collections, elaborates on the huge informal economy that supported railroad development. Railroad officials sought to gain access to local resources such as land, water, construction materials, labor, customer patronage, and political favors. Residents, in turn, maneuvered to maximize their gains from the wages, contracts, free passes, surplus materials, and services (including piped water) controlled by the railroad. Those areas of Mexico suffering poverty and isolation attracted public investment and infrastructure. A Social History of Mexico's Railroads is the dynamic story of the people and times that were changed by the railroads and is sure to engage students and general readers alike.


How Latin America Fell Behind

How Latin America Fell Behind

Author: Stephen H. Haber

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 338

ISBN-13: 9780804727389

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In 1800, the per capita income of the United States was twice that of Mexico and roughly the same as Brazil's. By 1913, it was four times greater than Mexico's and seven times greater than Brazil's. This volume seeks to explain the nineteenth-century lag in Latin American economic development. Breaking with the longstanding dependency tradition in Latin American historiography, the contributors argue that the slowdown had far more to do with internal political and legal structures than foreign influences. Topics covered include the performance of Mexico and Brazil, the impact of independence, capital markets, regional growth, the impact of railroads, and the economic effects of 'culture'. The editor's introductory essay surveys the history of economic growth theories and Latin American economic historiography. -- Publisher's description.


The Political Economy of the Brazilian State, 1889–1930

The Political Economy of the Brazilian State, 1889–1930

Author: Steven Topik

Publisher: University of Texas Press

Published: 2014-11-11

Total Pages: 256

ISBN-13: 1477305203

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In this first overview of the Brazilian republican state based on extensive primary source material, Steven Topik demonstrates that well before the disruption of the export economy in 1929, the Brazilian state was one of the most interventionist in Latin America. This study counters the previous general belief that before 1930 Brazil was dominated by an export oligarchy comprised of European and North American capitalists and that only later did the state become prominent in the country’s economic development. Topik examines the state’s performance during the First Republic (1889–1930) in four sectors—finance, the coffee trade, railroads, and industry. By looking at the controversies in these areas, he explains how domestic interclass and international struggles shaped policy and notes the degree to which the state acted relatively independently of civil society. Topik’s primary concern is the actions of state officials and whether their decisions reflected the demands of the ruling class. He shows that conflicting interests of fractions of the ruling class and foreign investors gradually led to far greater state participation than any of the participants originally desired, and that the structure of the economy and of society—not the intentions of the actors—best explains the state’s economic presence.


The Fall of the House of Speyer

The Fall of the House of Speyer

Author: George W. Liebmann

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2015-08-06

Total Pages: 330

ISBN-13: 0857729284

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The dramatic story of the last fifty years of the Speyer banking dynasty, a Jewish family of German descent, is surprisingly little known today, yet at the turn of the 20th century, Speyer was the third largest investment banking firm in the United States, behind only Morgan and Kuhn, Loeb. It had branches in London, Frankfurt and New York, and the projects it financed included the Southern Pacific Railroad, the London Underground and the infrastructure of the new Cuban republic. Later, it was the first major banking firm to finance Germany's Weimar Republic, as well as providing League of Nations loans to Hungary, Greece and Bulgaria. Yet, the firm was doomed by the nationalist passions aroused by World War I. Its English partner was denaturalised and exiled; its American partner enjoyed reduced standing because of his connection to Germany; and the Frankfurt branch closed with the coming of the Third Reich, its German partner fleeing into exile. The firm was dissolved in 1939, a surprisingly anticlimactic end to one of the great international banking companies of modern times. George W. Liebmann here tells the story of the firm and the family - shedding new light on the protagonists of a remarkable dynasty, who came undone in the dramatic years of the early 20th century.


Handbook of Research on Economic, Financial, and Industrial Impacts on Infrastructure Development

Handbook of Research on Economic, Financial, and Industrial Impacts on Infrastructure Development

Author: Das, Ramesh Chandra

Publisher: IGI Global

Published: 2017-04-17

Total Pages: 494

ISBN-13: 1522523626

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The infrastructure of a country has significant effects on both the lives of its citizens and its place in international markets. As such, it is imperative to develop policies to promote the quality of a nation’s infrastructure. The Handbook of Research on Economic, Financial, and Industrial Impacts on Infrastructure Development is a pivotal reference source for the latest scholarly research on various initiatives and policies developed to enhance the current infrastructure of modern nations. Including the role of economics, finance, and multiple industry perspectives, this book covers a range of pertinent topics such as R&D initiatives, foreign direct investment, and trade liberalization, and this publication is an ideal reference source for researchers, academics, practitioners, and students interested in recent trends in infrastructure development.


An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Latin America

An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Latin America

Author: E. Cardenas

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2000-11-09

Total Pages: 343

ISBN-13: 0230599656

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This book explores the impact on Latin America of the extraordinary transformation of the international economy that took place in the half century or so that preceded the world depression of the 1930s. The authors show how the response varied in terms of both growth and distribution, shaped by varying preconditions, and by natural resources and geography. The interplay of economic developments with political and social structures had profound and varied effects on policy-making and on institutions that were of great significance for later decades.


Industrial Forests and Mechanical Marvels

Industrial Forests and Mechanical Marvels

Author: Teresa Cribelli

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2016-07-27

Total Pages: 273

ISBN-13: 1316720691

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An account of modernization and technological innovation in nineteenth-century Brazil that provides a distinctly Brazilian perspective. Existing scholarship on the period describes the beginnings of Brazilian modernization as a European or North American import dependent on foreign capital, transfers of technology, and philosophical inspiration. Promoters of modernization were considered few in number, derivative in their thinking, or thwarted by an entrenched slaveholding elite hostile to industrialization. Teresa Cribelli presents a more nuanced picture. Nineteenth-century Brazilians selected among the transnational flow of ideas and technologies with care and attention to the specific conditions of their tropical nation. Studying underutilized sources, Cribelli illuminates a distinctly Brazilian vision of modernization that challenges the view that Brazil, a nation dependent on slave labor for much of the nineteenth century, was merely reactive in the face of the modernization models of the North Atlantic industrializing nations.


Brazilian Railway Culture

Brazilian Railway Culture

Author: Martin Cooper

Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing

Published: 2011-07-12

Total Pages: 345

ISBN-13: 1443832456

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Brazilian Railway Culture examines the cultural relationship Brazil has had with its railways since tracks were first laid by British, American and French engineers in the nineteenth century. ‘Railway’ and ‘Brazil’ are words not often found in the same sentence. Yet each year over seven hundred million passengers are carried by train in the major urban centres, and tens of thousands of visitors enjoy heritage steam rides at over a dozen restored lines and museums. Brazilian Railway Culture starts from the premise that Brazilian society and culture is not just samba, football and sex. The book takes a journey through Brazilian cultural output from 1865 to the present day, examining novels, poetry, music, art, film and television, as well as autobiographies, written histories, and museums to uncover ways in which the railway has been represented. This interdisciplinary study engages with theories of informal empire and postcolonialism, Latin American studies, cultural studies, film and television studies, literary criticism, art history and criticism, museum and heritage studies, as well as railway studies. This is a supplementary text for use by students on both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. It will also be of interest to academics, researchers, and railway historians across a range of disciplines.