Ever since the quest for independence between 1810 and 1819, economic thought in Colombia has been shaped by policy debates and characterized by a pragmatic and eclectic approach. Economic thought in Colombia can only be revealed through the exploration of economists’ practices and the role of economic arguments within broader public debate. This history of Colombian economic thought provides a detailed account of major issues that have marked the constant feedback between economic ideas and economic practice in Colombia during the 19th and 20th centuries. This volume is thus a history of the interaction between ideas and policy. Those involved in these debates – politicians, public officials, journalists, and, latterly, professional economists – established direct contact with what can be identified as the centers of production of economic theory (both in Europe and the US) and entered regional and local networks in economics, but were not just importers of ideas or theories. The way in which they read, discussed, transformed and applied economic theories in Colombia makes for a rich environment for the production and implementation of economic policies that drew, diverged and transformed the way economics was understood and used as a source of knowledge for practical concerns. This is why the history of Colombian economic thought does not fit into traditional typologies of economic schools and why it must be understood as part of a political debate and within a political, social and cultural context that demanded specific solutions to urgent social demands. Through the study of what was taught, when and how, at the beginnings of the republican era, and why and how professional economists came to lead public debate and economic policy making in the 20th century, this book explores the foundations of this permanent interaction between theory and practice. This book will be of significant interest to readers of history of economic thought, economic history and the history of Colombian and Latin American economic, political and social life more broadly.

This is the first study of the development of economic thought in Latin America. It traces the development of economic ideas during five centuries and across the whole continent. It addresses a wide range of approaches to economic issues including: * the scholastic tradition in Latin American economies * the quantity theory of money * cameralism * human captal theory.

The appearance of Coffee and Conflict in Colombia, 1886-1910, had several important consequences for the entire field of Latin American history, as well as for the study of Colombia. Through Bergquist's analysis of this transitional period in terms of what has been called the dependency theory, he has left his mark on all subsequent studies in Latin American affairs; questions of economic development and political alignment cannot be dealt with without confronting Bergquist's work. he has also provided a major contribution to Colombian history by his examination of the growth of the coffee industry and Thousand Days War.

The untold story of how welfare and development programs in the United States and Latin America produced the instruments of their own destruction In the years after 1945, a flood of U.S. advisors swept into Latin America with dreams of building a new economic order and lifting the Third World out of poverty. These businessmen, economists, community workers, and architects went south with the gospel of the New Deal on their lips, but Latin American realities soon revealed unexpected possibilities within the New Deal itself. In Colombia, Latin Americans and U.S. advisors ended up decentralizing the state, privatizing public functions, and launching austere social welfare programs. By the 1960s, they had remade the country’s housing projects, river valleys, and universities. They had also generated new lessons for the United States itself. When the Johnson administration launched the War on Poverty, U.S. social movements, business associations, and government agencies all promised to repatriate the lessons of development, and they did so by multiplying the uses of austerity and for-profit contracting within their own welfare state. A decade later, ascendant right-wing movements seeking to dismantle the midcentury state did not need to reach for entirely new ideas: they redeployed policies already at hand. In this groundbreaking book, Amy Offner brings readers to Colombia and back, showing the entanglement of American societies and the contradictory promises of midcentury statebuilding. The untold story of how the road from the New Deal to the Great Society ran through Latin America, Sorting Out the Mixed Economy also offers a surprising new account of the origins of neoliberalism.

Colombia: Fragmented Land, Divided Society is a comprehensive history of the third most populous country of Latin America. It offers the most extensive discussion available in English of the whole of Colombian history-from pre-Columbian times to the present. The book begins with an in-depth look at the earliest years in Colombia's history, emphasizing the role geography played in shaping Colombia's economy, society, and politics and in encouraging the growth of distinctive regional cultures and identities. It includes a thorough discussion of Colombian politics that looks at the ways in which historical memory has affected political choices, particularly in the formation and development of the country's two traditional political parties. The authors explore the factors that have contributed to Colombia's economic troubles, such as the delay in its national economic integration and its relative ineffectiveness as an exporter. The three concluding chapters offer an authoritative and up-to-date examination of the impact of coffee on Colombia's economy and society, the social and political effects of urban growth, and the multiple dimensions of the violence that has plagued the country since 1946. Written in clear, vigorous prose, Colombia: Fragmented Land, Divided Society is essential for students of Latin American history and politics, and for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the history of this fascinating and tumultuous country.

Updated to include the historic 2022 presidential election, this deeply informed and accessible book traces the history of Colombia thematically over the past two centuries. LaRosa and Mejía move beyond the common perception of a failed state to explore the rich heritage and dynamism that have characterized Colombia past and present.

Before Colombia became one of the world’s largest producers of cocaine in the 1980s, traffickers from the Caribbean coast partnered with American buyers in the 1970s to make the South American country the main supplier of marijuana for a booming US drug market, fueled by the US hippie counterculture. How did Colombia become central to the creation of an international drug trafficking circuit? Marijuana Boom is the story of this forgotten history. Combining deep archival research with unprecedented oral history, Lina Britto deciphers a puzzle: Why did the Colombian coffee republic, a model of Latin American representative democracy and economic modernization, transform into a drug paradise, and at what cost?