Modernization in Colombia: The Laureano Gomez Years, 1889-1965 (review)
I will admit not being fully convinced of Deustua's (oft-hedged) thesis of mining as a critical sector in nineteenth-century Peru. This problem needs wider perspectives. Previous analysts do not deny the survival of colonial mining forms: they stress that mining failed to develop in post-colonial Peru or failed to stimulate new forms of growth. In the depressed state of the century's Andean interior, even a stagnant colonial institution would remain a regional mainstay. However, by the nineteenth century, with transport and technological innovations revolutionizing mining throughout the world, Peru's mines stayed technologically primitive, with no known boosts of capital, labor, or technical improvements (Deustua does not actually show any such changes overlooked by prior studies). Peru fell way behind comparable mining countries. Deustua barely addresses this long-term growth problem. On the other hand, there's plenty of convincing evidence here on the artisan scale, relative backwardness, and organizational or technological stasis in mining. Much of what came out of Peruvian mines was actually scrapped from colonial slag heaps, rather than new veins, shafts, or ventures. If "recycling" of sorts, and low-productivity work for some areas, it wasn't modern growth.