Publisher description for Imagining development : economic ideas in Peru's "fictitious prosperity" of guano, 1840-1880 / Paul Gootenberg.


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Counter Retelling the saga of Peru's nineteenth-century age of guano, Paul Gootenberg provides the first book in English to explore the historical genealogy of Latin America's postcolonial economic thought. He scrutinizes the mentalities, ideas, and visions that led the country down an ill-fated path of export liberalism. The surprising diversity, vitality, and subtlety of Peruvian economic thinking challenges images of Latin American liberalism as a borrowed, impoverished, and narrow conception of material progress.

By closely weaving together intellectual and social history and a multitude of forgotten texts, as well as trends in elite and popular and European and national cultures, Gootenberg offers a newly integrated approach to the long-neglected field of Latin American economic ideas.

Library of Congress subject headings for this publication: Guano industry Peru History 19th century, Peru Economic policy, Liberalism Peru History 19th century, Peru Economic conditions, Peru Social conditions