Synopses & Reviews
This book is a political history of economic life. Through a description of the convulsions of long-term change from colony to republic in Buenos Aires, Republic of Capital explores Atlantic world transformations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Tracing the transition from colonial Natural Law to instrumental legal understandings of property, the book shows that the developments of constitutionalism and property law were more than coincidences: the polity shaped the rituals and practices arbitrating economic justice, while the crisis of property animated the support for a centralized and executive-dominated state. In dialectical fashion, politics shaped private law while the effort to formalize the domain of property directed the course of political struggles.
In studying the legal and political foundations of Argentine capitalism, the author shows how merchants and capitalists coped with massive political upheaval and how political writers and intellectuals sought to forge a model of liberal republicanism. Among the topics examined are the transformation of commercial law, the evolution of liberal political credos, and the saga of political and constitutional turmoil after the collapse of Spanish authority.
By the end of the nineteenth century, statemakers, capitalists, and liberal intellectuals settled on a model of political economy that aimed for open markets but closed the polity to widespread participation. The author concludes by exploring the long-term consequences of nineteenth-century statehood for the following centurys efforts to promote sustained economic growth and democratize the political arena, and argues that many of Argentinas recent problems can be traced back to the framework and foundations of Argentine statehood in the nineteenth century.
Review
"This book by Jeremy Adelman takes us on a marvelous journey from late colonialism through decolonization."American Historical Review
Review
"This ambitious work considers an often overlooked issue in the historiography of Latin America: how new and unstable states undertook to create and protect property rights. . . . This is an excellent work that will be of immense value not only to scholars of Argentine history, but to anyone who is interested in the history of ideas or the impact of laws and political institutions on economic change."Latin American Studies
Review
"The combination of Adelman's persuasive argumentation and analysis makes this work an exceptional contribution to our understanding of nation building."Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Review
"Republic of Capital is an engaging, well-researched, and important contribution to our understanding of the political, intellectual, and legal changes that occurred in the Buenos Aires region from the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century, with a brief afterword on twentieth-century developments."Canadian Journal of History
Synopsis
This book is a political history of economic life. Through a description of the convulsions of long-term change from colony to republic in Buenos Aires, Republic of Capital explores Atlantic world transformations in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Synopsis
Winner of the American Historical Association Prize in Atlantic History
Tracing the transition from colonial Natural Law to instrumental legal understandings of property in Argentina, this book is a political history of economic life. Through a description of the convulsions of long-term change from colony to republic in Buenos Aires, it explores Atlantic world transformations in the 18th and 19th centuries.
Synopsis
“This is an ambitious work that approaches from a new and original vantage point an unusually vast historical landscape. It is a first-rate contribution that brings significant enrichment to the field, and should exert an important influence on its future development.”—Tulio Halperin-Donghi, University of California, Berkeley
“This book by Jeremy Adelman takes us on a marvelous journey from late colonialism through decolonization.”—American Historical Review
Synopsis
This book explores the political, legal, and economic history of Buenos Aires from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries, and traces the transition from colonial Natural Law to instrumental legal understandings of property. Among the topics examined are the transformation of commercial law, the evolution of liberal political credos, and the political and constitutional turmoil after the collapse of Spanish authority. The author argues that many of Argentina's recent problems can be traced back to the framework and foundations of Argentine statehood in the nineteenth century.
Synopsis
Political, legal, and economic history of Buenos Aires from the late eighteenth to the late nineteenth centuries.
About the Author
This is an ambitious work that approaches from a new and original vantage point an unusually vast historical landscape. It is a first-rate contribution that brings significant enrichment to the field, and should exert an important influence on its future development.”Tulio Halperin-Donghi, University of California, BerkeleyThis book by Jeremy Adelman takes us on a marvelous journey from late colonialism through decolonization.”American Historical ReviewThis ambitious work considers an often overlooked issue in the historiography of Latin America: how new and unstable states undertook to create and protect property rights. . . . This is an excellent work that will be of immense value not only to scholars of Argentine history, but to anyone who is interested in the history of ideas or the impact of laws and political institutions on economic change.”Latin American StudiesThe combination of Adelman’s persuasive argumentation and analysis makes this work an exceptional contribution to our understanding of nation building.”Journal of Interdisciplinary HistoryRepublic of Capital is an engaging, well-researched, and important contribution to our understanding of the political, intellectual, and legal changes that occurred in the Buenos Aires region from the late eighteenth century through the mid-nineteenth century, with a brief afterword on twentieth-century developments.”Canadian Journal of History
Table of Contents
1. Toward a political history of economic life; Part I. The Age of Revolution, 1780s-1820s: 2. Imperial reconstitution and the limits of political property; 3. The quest for equipoise in the shadow of revolution; 4. From revolution to civil war; Part II. The Age of 'Anarchy', 1820s-1850s: 5. Rosas Agonistes, or the political economy of Cronyism; 6. Chains of obligation: the duress of merchant law; 7. Reconsidering the republic; Part III. The Age of Order, 1850s-1860s: 8. Constitutional persuasions; 9. The new property of merchant capital; 10. Making money: the battle for monetary authority; 11. The unfinished revolution of the republic of capital; Notes' Bibliography; Index.