Technology and the Search for Progress in Modern Mexico

Reviews

"Beatty’s book is a groundbreaking study, a tour de force that should be required reading for anyone interested in economic development or the history of technology in the nineteenth-century Atlantic world."—American Historical Review

"This book establishes a model and a set of guiding questions for investigating technological development and adoption in modern Latin America. It should inspire scholars to conduct more detailed case studies, along the lines that Beatty sets out briefly in his three central examples. It will be of significant interest to economic historians and historians of technology at the graduate level and beyond."—Hispanic American Historical Review

“Edward Beatty’s exemplary archival research and superb synthesis of disparate materials illuminate new aspects of Mexican economic history.”—Richard J. Salvucci, author of Politics, Markets, and Mexico's "London Debt," 1823–1887

"This is a scholarly, readable, and highly original study of a major—but neglected—historical topic: technology transfer and its impact on Mexico, ca. 1870–1920. Combining perceptive general analysis with three illuminating case studies, it will be essential—but also enjoyable—reading for those interested in Mexican and, more broadly, Latin American economic and social history."—Alan Knight, Professor Emeritus of the History of Latin America, Oxford University