Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Pages: 304
•
Trim: 6¼ x 9½
978-1-4422-7089-3 • Hardback • February 2017 • $129.00 • (£99.00)
978-1-4422-7090-9 • Paperback • February 2017 • $41.00 • (£35.00)
978-1-4422-7091-6 • eBook • February 2017 • $39.00 • (£30.00)
Dennis Gilbert is Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Hamilton College. He is the author of The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality, Mexico's Middle Class in the Neoliberal Era, and Sandinistas: The Party and the Revolution.
Contents
List of Boxes, Figures, Photos, and Tables
Introduction
Part I: The Oligarchy and the Old Regime in Latin America
Chapter 1: Origins and Organization
Chapter 2: The Oligarchic Republics
Chapter 3: The Contested Republics
Part II: The Oligarchy and the Old Regime in Peru
Chapter 4: Peru’s Oligarchic Republic
Chapter 5: Peru’s Contested Republic
Chapter 6: The Aspíllagas: North Coast Planters
Chapter 7: The Prados: Bankers and Politicians
Chapter 8: The Miró Quesadas: Aristocratic Reformers
Part III: Conclusions
Chapter 9: Class, Clan, and Cohesion
Chapter 10: The Sources of Oligarchic Power
Chapter 11: The End of the Old Regime: Peru in Comparative Perspective
Appendix: Selecting the Oligarchic Twenty-Nine
Bibliography and Archival Sources
Index
Gilbert’s account of this central story of Latin American politics between the late nineteenth century and the 1960s is level-headed, clearly written and organized, and reliable in its details. . . [his] study offers a good introduction to the social and political history of the oligarchy for undergraduate and graduate students, and presents interesting tools for analyzing the rise and fall of oligarchic politics in Latin America.— American Historical Review
Recent work on Latin America has de-emphasized the elite in favor of better understanding those who struggle for power and access to resources. Sociologist Gilbert, however, provides a long-missing and essential picture of the oligarchy by examining how the most powerful gained, held, and then lost control of the economy and politics over a century. Part I provides a general overview of oligarchic power and cohesion as well as details about the workings of the oligarchy in Mexico, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Argentina. Part II is a more extensive analysis of three families in the Peruvian oligarchy: the Aspíllaga, Prado, and Miró Quesada clans. This book is especially valuable because it uses concrete examples and explains how the elite develop and maintain a cohesive collective identity, a topic rarely detailed in other work. Gilbert also examines the ‘contested republic,’ when the oligarchy’s focus on the export sector of the economy ultimately gave rise to new forces—the middle classes, the working class, urban dwellers, and professionalized militaries—that challenged oligarchic power and led to its ultimate demise after the mid-20th century.
Summing Up: Recommended. All levels/libraries.— Choice Reviews
Gilbert’s clear prose and detailed account of Peruvian oligarchs will attract the attention of students of Latin America. Of particular interest are the sections in which the author masterfully writes about the social world of the oligarchs since infancy to late adulthood. Labor historians of the Americas will find many similarities with respect to the shady managerial practices of these wealthy men. Anti-union policies, violence, and corruption characterized them all. Political scientists interested in the first years of APRA and its later conversion to a less radical party will also find Gilbert’s book useful.
— Hispanic American Historical Review
The strength of Gilbert’s book lies in three excellent chapters of elite social and political history describing three oligarchic Peruvian clans (the Aspíllagas, planters; the Prados, bankers; and the Miró Quesadas, publishers). Here we get a peek behind the curtain at oligarchic life, economy, and politics. Gilbert offers very useful charts showing all the political and economic connections held by the Prado family, including all the different boards of directors and political positions each family member enjoyed. — Latin American Research Review
"There is virtually no careful sociological-historical analysis on the inner workings of the ruling oligarchy or the oligarchical state that played such a dominant role in Latin America in much of the twentieth century. Gilbert's comparative study across five countries is an impressively researched and probing, fine-grained analysis of the phenomenon that fills this void and will stand as the standard for some time to come."— Peter Klaren, George Washington University
In The Oligarchy and the Old Regime in Latin America, 1880–1970, Dennis Gilbert has built upon a distinguished career studying class formation and elite economic and political practice in modern Spanish America. Here he incorporates a broad comparative framework embracing Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, combining micro-social and macro-social perspectives, giving us an illuminating picture of elite family networks over a century.— Eric Van Young, University of California San Diego
In this engaging political and sociological history, Dennis Gilbert recounts the rise, reign, and ultimate decline of five Latin American oligarchies—the landed elites that dominated society and government from the late-nineteenth to mid-twentieth centuries. Each case has its peculiarities, but they follow a common trajectory: the rise to dominance followed by decline when powerful new actors from the emerging middle and lower classes arose to challenge the oligarchic order. Gilbert combines this broad sweep of history with a deep dive into the case of Peru, where his access to elite family correspondence and interviews with key figures opens a revealing window into the oligarchs' world and worldview, their feuds, and their response to political challenge. A must read for students of Latin American history, politics, and sociology.— William LeoGrande, American University
Offers the first comparative study of oligarchic rule in Latin America
Emphasizes political and social change during a pivotal period in Latin American history
Includes revealing human histories of three prominent families, based on extensive interviews and rich archival sources
The comparative perspective illuminates the factors that strengthened or undermined oligarchic power
An ideal supplement for courses on the Modern History of Latin America