This study examines the process of railway modernization in Minas Gerais. It uses theoretical classification that combines external variables, especially the expansion of the capital into the periphery, with internal variables, above all the hegemony of the raw material exporting model, marked...

During 19th century and the beginning of the following century Minas Gerais was the most important sugarcane plantation area in Brazil. In the 1830's there were presumably 4.150 productive unities working with sugarcane transformation in Minas Gerais. Probably, the sum of all sugar mills in the...

The aim of this paper is to present a database that contains a new way to relate quantitative and qualitative information. The authors intend to make it available for economic history researchers. It is a database about the "provincial inquiries", an important source of information on economic...

Between 1750 and 1880, Minas Gerais developed an economy predominantly non-exporting as well as relatively independent of external markets of other Brazilian regions and of foreign markets. Due to such unique historical evolution, contemporaries had to develop specific understanding and ways of...

The issue of politically oriented regional development occupies an important place in the Economic History of Minas Gerais during the republican period. Since the start of the 20th century, and throughout the most important transformative stages of the Brazilian economic system, notably between...

Sugarcane plantations industry, the oldest and more important activity of rural transformation in Brazil, experienced profound metamorphosis in twentieth century. This process began in the last quarter of the previous century, and resulted in the progressive establishment of an essentially new...

From the Brazilian coast to its inland, sugarcane molded economic, social and cultural landscapes with distinctive identities. The monotony of extensive sugarcane plantations was transformed as this culture started to grow along with other cultivations, with livestock, with several rural...