When Sugar Ruled: Economy and Society in Northwestern Argentina, Tucuman, 1876-1916

Two tropical commodities—coffee and sugar—dominated Latin American export economies in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. When Sugar Ruled presents a distinctive case that does not quite fit into the pattern of many Latin American sugar economies.

Tucumán’s sugar industry catered exclusively to the needs of the expanding national market and was financed mostly by domestic capital. The expansion of sugar production did not produce massive land dispossession as sugar mil…