Introduction The Export Age: The Latin American Economies in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Abstract

This book explores the impact on Latin America of the extraordinary transformation in the international economy — in kind and degree — that took place in the half-century or so which preceded the World Depression of the 1930s. The period covered in the studies varies, however, from country to country, reflecting the different experiences in the process of integration to the world economy. The book also studies the internal transformation that the various economies experienced as a consequence of successive external shocks. Some of these had rather similar effects throughout: the First World War and the postwar boom and crash, and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Others did not: the Baring crisis of the early 1890s, the collapse of coffee prices at the turn of the century, other events in specific commodity markets, and even the recovery of the 1920s, the characteristics of which varied considerably from country to country. Domestic events which affected economic development throughout this period are also taken into account. The most remarkable of them was, obviously, the Mexican Revolution.