Examining the commodity chains that have connected producers in Latin America with consumers around the world for 500 years, this work follows a specific commodity from its inception, through its development and transport, to its final destination in the hands of consumers

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction. Commodity Chains in Theory and in Latin American History -- 1 The Spanish-American Silver Peso: Export Commodity and Global Money of the Ancien Regime, 1550-1800 -- 2 Indigo Commodity Chains in the Spanish and British Empires, 1560-1860 -- 3 Mexican...

The self-proclaimed "liberal" economic policies of Brazil and Mexico in the period of 1870-1910 emphasized, according to the conventional historiography, small government, foreign investment and free trade. We found, however, that the states in Brazil and Mexico, while graded by the theory of...