American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean, 1898-1934
Engaging conventional arguments that the persistence of plantations is the cause of economic underdevelopment in the Caribbean, this book focuses on the discontinuities in the development of plantation economies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in the early twentieth century. César Ayala analyzes and compares the explosive growth of sugar production in the three nations following the War of 1898—when the U.S. acquired Cuba and Puerto Rico—to show how closely the development of...
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This comparative study of the development of plantation economies in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic in the early 20th century shows how their economic and social class systems were shaped by the explosive growth of American sugar companies.
Acknowledgments Introduction 1. A Caribbean Plantation System 2. The Horizontal Consolidation of the U.S. Sugar Refining Industry 3. The Sugar Tariff and Vertical Integration 4. Vertical Integration in the Colonies 5. The Colonos 6. Labor and Migration 7. The Twentieth-Century Plantation 8. Economic Collapse and Revolution Epilogue Notes Bibliography Index
\ From the PublisherAn original work of tremendous interest to scholars concerned with Caribbean history, economic geography, corporate agriculture, and the political economy.\ Cuban Studies\ As meticulous in its research as it is evocative in its approach, Ayala's book is, without doubt, a significant contribution.\ Journal of American History\ Both a contribution to the study of the sugar industry in the Caribbean and an examination of the processes of American imperialism.\ American Historical Review\ A very welcome addition to the historiography of the Caribbean and to development-underdevelopment theory.\ Business History Review\ [This book] excels in providing a coherent comparative analysis of capitalist underdevelopment in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic.\ Latin American Research Review\ \ \
