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 Academy of American Franciscan History is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Americas

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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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7/23/2019 Barrán La Prosperidad Frágil 1905- 1914

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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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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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