Regional Markets and Agrarian Transformation in Bolivia: Cochabamba, 1539-1960

by Robert H. Jackson

In a groundbreaking volume, Professor Jackson seeks to discover when and how modernity supplanted the colonial era in Bolivia. The rural economy, structure of land tenure, and hacienda labor arrangements in the Andean region are carefully delineated through a case study of Cochabamba, a key region in the central valley of Bolivia, to trace changes in patterns present since the sixteenth century.

Between 1840 and 1930, shifts in regional markets...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 082631533X
• ISBN13: 9780826315335
• Release Date: October 1994
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 294 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Jackson challenges exisiting views of Bolivian history

Jackson's book uses the community of Cochabamba as a case study to examine life in rural Bolivia from colonial times to the present. Relying on archival materials from Cochabamba to develop his analysis, Jackson challenges the tendency to portray Andean natives as hapless victims of modernity. His examination of agrarian, economic, political, and demographic history clearly demonstrates that peasant natives of Bolivia have played, and continue to play, an active role in that nation's development.Much like Nils Jacobsen's excellent book, Mirages of Transition: The Peruvian Altiplano, 1780-1930, Jackson's book depicts a highly resilient peasant population that continues to flourish despite centuries of exploitation and displacement. This book is an example of how to do research using rural archives. It is a must-read for students of Bolivia and the Andes generally in addition to those interested in demographic or economic history.