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7/23/2019 Barrán La Prosperidad Frágil 1905- 1914
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/barran-la-prosperidad-fragil-1905-1914 1/3
Academy of American Franciscan History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Americas
.
http://www.jstor.org
ReviewAuthor(s): Peter Winn
Review by: Peter WinnSource: The Americas, Vol. 35, No. 2 (Oct., 1978), pp. 279-280Published by: Academy of American Franciscan HistoryStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/980919Accessed: 25-07-2015 11:09 UTC
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This content downloaded from 164.73.224.2 on Sat, 25 Jul 2015 11:09:10 UTCAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
7/23/2019 Barrán La Prosperidad Frágil 1905- 1914
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/barran-la-prosperidad-fragil-1905-1914 2/3
BOOK
REVIEWS
279
La
prosperidadfrdgil
1905-1914).
By
Jose
Pedro
Barran
and
Benjamin
Nahum.
HistoriaRural del
Uruguay
Moderno,
Toma
V.
(Montevedio:
Ediciones de
la
Banda
Oriental, 1976. Pp. ii, 183. Notes. Tables. No price.)
The four
previous
volumes
of
Barran and
Nahum's
Historiarural
covered
the
years
1830-1904 and
marked it as a
major
reinterpretation
of
Uruguayan
history
and one
of the most
significant
works
of
economic
history
to
emerge
from
Latin
America in
recent
years.
With the
publication
ofLaprosperidadfrdgil,
he
authors
bring
their account
of the
transformationof
Uruguay up
to the
First
World
War
and
offer a
paradoxical
new
interpretation
of
Batlle's two
presidencies
and
the
economic
change
they
facilitated.
Barran
and Nahum's
fifth volume is
more
purely
economic in
focus than
its
predecessors,
but the social and
political
context are
always
in view and interna-
tional
factors are
given
even
greater
attention. The
book
begins
with a
concise
discussion of the
political
and
financial
preconditions
for the
prosperity
of
the
pre-war
decade. The
authors stress
Batlle's role in
assuring political
and financial
stability
as well
as
honest and
efficient
government,
while
underscoring
the
importance
of the
Uruguayan
accumulation of
capital
during
the
previous
era of
political
and
economic
uncertainty
and the
favorable
market
conditions for
Uruguayan
produce
and
European
financing.
They
then
describe the
consider-
able
economic
growth
that
followed.
Most of the
book, however,
is
devoted to a more
critical
exploration
of the
characterof
this
prosperity
and the
consequence
of
this
pattern
of
growth.
Their
thesis
is
a
sweeping,
but
simple
one: the
transformation
of
Uruguayan
cattle
ranching
during
the
pre-war
years
generated
both
the
prosperity
and
progress
of
that
era,
turning
Uruguay
into a
major
beef
exporter
and
the
home
of a
modern
meat-packing
ndustry.
The
price
of
this
progress,
however,
was the
increased
dependence
of
the
Uruguayan
economy
upon
a
complex
of
factors-international
prices
and
political
rivalries,
European
produce
and
capital
markets,
British
sanitary regulations
and
trade
policies, Uruguayan rural entrepreneurship and
governmental
capacity-any
one
of
which
could
transform
commerce
into
crisis
and
prosperity
into
penury.
The
authors
conclude:
Eran
demasiadas
ondicionantes
ara
que
el
progreso
uera
perdurable,
las
mis
graves
y
decisivas
no
dependian
del
Uruguay.
.En
esas
condiciones,
el
golpe
sobrevendria,
ardeo
temprano.
Mientras
anto,
viviamos
nuestra
belle
epoque
p.
110).
The
volume
culminates in
an
incisive
analysis
of the
central
change
in
the
rural
economy
during
this
era-the
emergence
of
large-scale
cattle
ranching
oriented to
the British meat market-and an exploration of its social and political implica-
tions for
Uruguay.
The
advent
of
the
less
hardy
refined
breeds,
Barran
and
Nahum
argue,
convirti6
a la
ganaderia
en
un
cristal.
Este se
cotiza
mejor
que
el
vidrio, per
es
misrAgil
(p.
109).
This
economic
change,
moreover,
undermined
the
influence of
the
sheep-farming
rural
middle
class
and
consolidated
the
power
of
the
great
cattle
barons.
The
irony
of
Batlle's
presidencies,
the
authors
conclude,
is
that
the
economic
changes
which
they
made
possible
would ulti-
mately
limit and
frustrate
Batlle's
far-reaching
plans
for the
transformation
of
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7/23/2019 Barrán La Prosperidad Frágil 1905- 1914
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280 BOOK
REVIEWS
Uruguay, strengthening
the social forces
opposed
to
radical reform and reinforc-
ing
their
strategic position
within the
Uruguayan economy.
This
challenging
thesis is
only
asserted
here,
but
it
will
be a central theme of
Barran and Nahum's
next volume.
La
prosperidadfrdgil,
owever,
stands on its
own
as
an
important
new
view of
a crucial decade
in
Uruguayan
history,
based
upon
careful
original
research
in
diverse
contemporary
sources and informed
by
the
analytic perspectives
of
dependency theory.
At
times,
this reliance
upon
dependencia-which
shapes
the structure
of
the book
as
well as its
interpretations-seems
excessive. The
authors,
however,
provide
solid
documentation
for their revisions of
Uruguayan history
and their
arguments
are
generally
persuasive.
This book merits the attention not
only
of
specialists
in
Uruguay, but of all scholars and teachers interested in the history of Latin
America's
integration
into
the
world
economy
and the
profound
domestic
consequences
of this
process.
PETER WINN
Columbia
University
Friars, Soldiers,
and
Reformers:
Hispanic
Arizona and
the
Sonora
Mission
Frontier
1767-1856. By John L. Kessell. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976.
Pp.
xvi,
347.
Illustrations.
Index.
Bibliography.
$8.35
paper;
$14.50
cloth.)
This book is a
very
good
example
of what
a well documented
local
history
should
be.
Using
public
and
private
archives,
both
civil and
ecclesiastical,
John
L.
Kessell
has written
a vivid
and detailed
reconstruction
of the
post-Jesuit
period
of
the
Pimeria
Alta missions
(Sonora
and
Hispanic-Arizona),
1767
to
1856.
Forced
by
Carlos
III's
decree
of
expulsion,
the
Jesuits
of the
Pimeria
Alta left
Sonora
during
the latter
months
of 1767.
The
Franciscans,
who were
to be
in
charge
of these
missions
during
the
remainder
of the Colonial
period,
arrived
during
the
early
months of 1768
to find that
the condition
of the missions did
not
at all
correspond
to the
optimistic
description
they
had
been
given.
Moreover,
they
were
now confronted
with
the new
regulations
of the Crown
concerning
the
missions
which
specificed
that
the administration
of the
temporal
goods
of the
missions
was
no
longer
to
be
in
charge
of the
missionary;
that
the Indians
were to
elect
their
own
officials,
and
that the
community goods
of
the
mission
were
to
be
administered
by
the
civil
authority.
The missionaries'
paternalistic
attitude
toward
the
Indian
was
to
disappear
and the Indian was
to be
given
liberty,
education, and civil rights. In this way, the enlightenment was makingits entry
into
mission
territory.
As
a rule the
missionary
looked
upon
the introduction
of these ideas
into
the
mission
field
with
a
great
deal
of
distrust;
he
felt
that
they
would
bring
about
the
ruin
of
the
missions. As
a
matter
of fact
this
was,
at least
in
part,
the
purpose
of the
new
legislation.
The
Crown
intended
to
put
an
end to
the mission
period
on
the
Hispanic
frontier
in order
to establish
bishoprics
and
parishes.
However,
these
royal
decrees
were not
the
only
factor
which
would
prove
unfavorable
toward
the
continued
success
of the
mission.
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