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The Economic Dynamics of Spanish Colonialism in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

W.G. Clarence-Smith
W.G. Clarence-Smith
Affiliation:
SOAS, University of London
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Extract

The survival of the Spanish empire after the loss of the mainland American colonies is a neglected subject, and no part of it is more neglected than its economic features. General histories of Spain in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries rarely touch on overseas matters, although the colonies do occasionally appear centre stage, as in 1868, when the Cuban Creoles rose in rebellion; in 1898, when Spain lost most of her colonies as a result of war with America; in 1921, when the Berber tribes of Northern Morocco defeated the Spanish army; and in 1936, when General Franco and his coconspirators raised the standard of rebellion against the Republic in North Western Africa. But these references are episodic and essentially political, indeed military in nature. There is little structural analysis of what the colonies meant to Spain, least of all in the economic field.

Type
Articles
Information
Itinerario , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , March 1991 , pp. 71 - 90
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 1991

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References

Notes

* All Spanish names are given in second and subsequent references by the first surname only.

Values for the peseta are given in an appendix at the end of the text.

1 Carr's, Raymond monumental Spain 1808–1975 (2nd ed.; Exford 1982), includes a great deal of valuable material on colonial matters, but fails to draw out the importance of the subject, especially in its economic aspect. Much worse isGoogle ScholarSánchez-Albornoz, N. ed., The Economic Modernization of Spain, 1830–1930 (New York 1987), which does not even have an index entry for Cuba!Google Scholar

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