In this Book
- Tales of Two Cities: Race and Economic Culture in Early Republican North and South America
- Book
- 2000
- Published by: University of Texas Press
summary
The United States and the countries of Latin America were all colonized by Europeans, yet in terms of economic development, the U.S. far outstripped Latin America beginning in the nineteenth century. Observers have often tried to account for this disparity, many of them claiming that differences in cultural attitudes toward work explain the U.S.’s greater prosperity. In this innovative study, however, Camilla Townsend challenges the traditional view that North Americans succeeded because of the so-called Protestant work ethic and argues instead that they prospered relative to South Americans because of differences in attitudes towards workers that evolved in the colonial era. Townsend builds her study around workers’ lives in two similar port cities in the 1820s and 1830s. Through the eyes of the young Frederick Douglass in Baltimore, Maryland, and an Indian girl named Ana Yagual in Guayaquil, Ecuador, she shows how differing attitudes towards race and class in North and South America affected local ways of doing business. This empirical research clarifies the significant relationship between economic culture and racial identity and its long-term effects.
Table of Contents
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- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-xii
- Prologue: First Impressions
- pp. xiii-xxiv
- Introduction
- pp. 1-20
- Part I
- 1. In the Streets of the Cities
- pp. 23-46
- 2. Conquest and Colony
- pp. 47-68
- Part II
- Part III
- Part IV
- Conclusion
- pp. 233-240
- Bibliography
- pp. 289-312
Additional Information
ISBN
9780292798816
Related ISBN(s)
9780292781672
MARC Record
OCLC
646760658
Pages
344
Launched on MUSE
2012-09-04
Language
English
Open Access
No