Well, we had a small but lively discussion at our last meeting, where we read a chapter from Sidney Mintz’s Sweetness and Power. We agreed that if we had written a book like that, we could die happy.
For our next meeting, on October 23 (in the Liu Institute, 10am-12noon), we will be reading chapters two (“Comprehensive Analysis of Development”) and three (“The Period of ‘Outward Expansion'”) from Fernando Enrique Cardoso and Enzo Faletto, Dependency and Development in Latin America. Trans Marjory Mattingly Urquidi. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. 8-73.
Agustín Goenaga reports:
Chapter 2 is a presentation of their theoretical framework or, rather, a critique of modernization theories of economic development. I think it can be useful insofar it begins to present the kind of arguments regarding the particularities of Latin American capitalism that we found in Quijano and Schwarz. The chapter is about 20 pages long, although it is very abstract and a bit abstruse.
Chapter 3 is their historical interpretation of 19th Century Latin America. It is a much more grounded chapter and it is better to observe how their argument about external linkages and internal roots of Latin American capitalism played out in specific countries. An interesting advantage of reading this chapter is that it provides some country-specific context to what we have read so far in Quijano and Schwarz. However, the chapter is longer (40 pages).
And for our November meeting, Magdalena has volunteered to pick something; she is going to think about what she wants us to read.