New Countries: Capitalism, Revolutions, and Nations in the Americas, 1750-1870

by John Tutino

Overview

After 1750 the Americas lived political and popular revolutions, the fall of European empires, and the rise of nations as the world faced a new industrial capitalism. Political revolution made the United States the first new nation; revolutionary slaves made Haiti the second, freeing themselves and destroying the leading Atlantic export economy. A decade later, Bajío insurgents took down the silver economy that fueled global trade and sustained Spain’s empire while Britain triumphed at war and pioneered industrial ways that led the U.S. South, still-Spanish Cuba, and a Brazilian empire to expand slavery to supply rising industrial centers. Meanwhile, the fall of silver left people from Mexico through the Andes searching for new states and economies. After 1870 the United States became an agro-industrial hegemon, and most American nations turned to commodity exports, while Haitians and diverse indigenous peoples struggled to retain independent ways.   
 
Contributors. Alfredo Ávila, Roberto Breña, Sarah C. Chambers, Jordana Dym, Carolyn Fick, Erick Langer, Adam Rothman, David Sartorius, Kirsten Schultz, John Tutino

Product Details

ISBN-13:	2900822361335
Publisher:	Duke University Press Books
Publication date:	12/09/2016
Pages:	408
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 1.25(h) x 9.00(d)

About the Author

John Tutino is Professor of History at Georgetown Universityand author of Making a New World: Founding Capitalism in the Bajío and Spanish North America, also published by Duke UniversityPress. He leads the Georgetown Americas Initiative, which sponsored the workshops which led to this volume.
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  ix

Introduction: Revolutions, Nations, and a New Industrial World / John Tutino  1

Part I. Hemispheric Challenges

1. The Americas in the Rise of Industrial Capitalism / John Tutino  25

2. The Cádiz Liberal Revolution and Spanish American Independence / Roberto Brena  71

Part II. Atlantic Transformations

3. Union, Capitalism, and Slavery in the "Rising Empire" of the United States / Adam Rothman  107

4. From Slave Colony to Black Nation: Haiti's Revolutionary Inversion / Carolyn Fick  138

5. Cuban Counterpoint: Colonialism and Continuity in the Atlantic World / David Sartorius  175

6. Atlantic Transformations and Brazil's Imperial Independence / Kirsten Schultz  201

Part III. Spanish American Inversions

7. Becoming Mexico: The Conflictive Search for a North American Nation / Alfredo Avila and John Tutino  233

8. The Republic of Guatemala: Stitching Together a New Country / Jordana Dym  178

9. From One Patria, Two Nations in the Andean Heartland / Sarah C. Chambers  316

10. Indigenous Independence in Spanish South America / Erick D. Langer  350

Epilogue. Consolidating Divergence: The Americas and the World after 1850 / Erick D. Langer and John Tutino  376

Contributors  387

Index  389

What People are Saying About This

The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century - James E. Sanders

"New Countries offers a powerful correction to Atlantic and world histories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that still privilege Anglophone or Francophone worlds when explaining the rise of democratic republicanism and industrialization. It bridges the often arbitrary colonial-national divide while addressing many of the most active debates in Latin American history, including critiques that the literature so concerned with culture and politics has neglected the economic realm. This volume wisely insists we separate them at our peril."

A Nation without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars 1830-1910 - Steven Hahn author of

"A remarkable and challenging collection of essays brought together by a historian who has challenged us in expansive ways on his own. Students at all levels and in several disciplines interested in what a global perspective might look like and how we might better think about the development of nations, empires, and capitalism will find New Countries both stimulating and valuable."

The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World - Greg Grandin

"This wonderful anthology offers something more important than the sum of each of its stellar essays. New Countries reestablishes the coherence (even as it recognizes the diversity) of early nineteenth-century movements across the Americas. It should be read not just by historians of Latin America but by all scholars interested in new international history, particularly the New World origins of modern systems of exploitation, principles of sovereignty, and ideas of liberation."
 

Editorial Reviews

"Seasoned teachers of the history of the Americas will find much in this anthology that echoes and clarifies their own efforts to map out hemispheric patterns and plot wider connections. Students of the Americas, particularly those at more advanced levels, and specialists of other regions and disciplines will benefit from the effort the authors have made to create an ‘integrated history’ of the Americas that views events from a broad social and economic perspective, takes proper account of contingency, particularly the impact of organised violence and warfare, and addresses both the commonality and the diversity of the historical experience of the hemisphere."

Journal of Latin American Studies - Guy Thomson

"Historians of the United States will find this well-edited volume’s emphasis on the move in the hemisphere from diversity to consolidation, and on the common impact or effects of civil wars, abolitionism, and the imposition of racial exclusions and disabilities on large segments of national populations during the adjustment to world economy (as traced in a conclusion by Tutino and Langer) to be a useful way to rethink American exceptionalism and to think comparatively about the political and social effects of the global economy."

Journal of American History - Stuart B. Schwartz

This exceptionally strong volume provides a critical step toward bringing interpretive coherence to the distinct yet inseparable wave trains that swelled across and in some cases smashed against American shores during this revolutionary age.

The Latin Americanist - Steven J. Bachelor

"A remarkable effort. . . . An important book that makes an extraordinary effort of synthesis by looking at global and hemispheric history. It offers sophisticated insights about the political and economic connections linking the Americas to the world. As such, it will dispel inherited historiographical misrepresentations of the nineteenth century."

Agricultural History - Marcela Echeverri

"New Countries opens up possibilities for new inquiries that link the global with the local. This book is long overdue."

Journal of Social History - Edward P. Pompeian

"Because of the diversity of themes and nations covered by the volume, including identity, liberalism, slavery, industrialization, and Indigenous rights to name a few, it will appeal to multiple audiences. . . . In the end, New Countries proposes an innovative, ambitious, and exciting framework to view the Age of Revolutions, the Atlantic World, and the path to liberalism and industrial capitalism."

Canadian Journal of History - Erin Woodruff Stone

"This wonderful anthology offers something more important than the sum of each of its stellar essays. New Countries reestablishes the coherence (even as it recognizes the diversity) of early nineteenth-century movements across the Americas. It should be read not just by historians of Latin America but by all scholars interested in new international history, particularly the New World origins of modern systems of exploitation, principles of sovereignty, and ideas of liberation."
 

The Empire of Necessity: Slavery, Freedom, and Deception in the New World - Greg Grandin

"A remarkable and challenging collection of essays brought together by a historian who has challenged us in expansive ways on his own. Students at all levels and in several disciplines interested in what a global perspective might look like and how we might better think about the development of nations, empires, and capitalism will find New Countries both stimulating and valuable."

A Nation without Borders: The United States and Its World in an Age of Civil Wars 1830-1910 - Steven Hahn author of

"New Countries offers a powerful correction to Atlantic and world histories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that still privilege Anglophone or Francophone worlds when explaining the rise of democratic republicanism and industrialization. It bridges the often arbitrary colonial-national divide while addressing many of the most active debates in Latin American history, including critiques that the literature so concerned with culture and politics has neglected the economic realm. This volume wisely insists we separate them at our peril."

The Vanguard of the Atlantic World: Creating Modernity, Nation, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century - James E. Sanders

"A remarkable and challenging collection of essays brought together by a historian who has challenged us in expansive ways on his own. Students at all levels and in several disciplines interested in what a global perspective might look like and how we might better think about the development of nations, empires, and capitalism, will find New Countries both stimulating and valuable."

Steven Hahn

"New Countries offers a powerful correction to Atlantic and world histories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that still privilege Anglophone or Francophone worlds when explaining the rise of democratic republicanism and industrialization. It bridges the often arbitrary colonial-national divide while addressing many of the most active debates in Latin American history, including critiques that the literature so concerned with culture and politics has neglected the economic realm. This volume wisely insists we separate them at our peril."

James Sanders