Hacienda and Market in Eighteenth-Century Mexico: The Rural Economy of the Guadalajara Region, 1675-1820

xvi+388 pages with 2 maps, 21 figures, 29 tables, bibliography and index. Royal octavo (9 1/2" x 6 1/2") issued in red cloth with gilt lettering to spine. 1st edition. The Countryside near Guadalajara underwent great change in the eighteenth century, for that city, dependent on the surrounding area for food and other resources, grew six fold in those one hundred years. This book examines the period 1675-1820, showing how the haciendas near Guadalajara responded to a rapidly escalating demand for meat, maize, wheat, and other necessities. By studying how agricultural production, patterns of capital investment, the labor system, and land ownership and use changed to meet the city's increasing needs, Van Young demonstrates the vital role cities play in the modernization of traditional peasant societies. Unlike in Europe, the great rural estates of Mexico intensified but did not otherwise change their methods of agricultural technology. By increasing capital investment, paying more workers less money, and cultivating previously unused land, the commercial, large-scale farms made profits and usually managed to feed the city's population. But Van Young finds that increasing population pressure and tremendous rural impoverishment plagued the vaunted prosperity of the eighteenth century. As in so many developing regions, the economic changes that benefited the wealthy land owners did not similarly improve the lot of the poor. Condition: Corners bumped. A better than very good in a near fine dust jacket.