Colours, Commodities and the Birth of Globalization

Carlos Marichal is Emeritus Professor of Economic History at El Colegio de México, Mexico. He has published twenty books, as author and editor, including A Century of Debt Crises in Latin America, 1820-1930. In 2012 he received the National Prize of Mexico in Sciences and Arts.David Pretel is Assistant Professor at Autonomous University of Madrid, Spain. He has been visiting scholar at the universities of Harvard, Cambridge, UCLA, and the Max Planck Institute. His first book, Institutionalising Patents in Nineteenth-Century Spain, examined the development of the Spanish patent system, and he is co-editor of the volumes The Caribbean and the Atlantic World Economy, 1650-1914 and Technology and Globalisation: Networks of Experts in World History.

This volume explores the global history of natural dyes from the Americas and asks how their production and trade have shaped globalisation since early modern times. From their extraction and processing to their overseas trade, it shows how this commodity contributed to the rise of the textile industry and consumption in Europe, the United States and Latin America. In doing so, it sheds new light on the emergence of a global economy.Spanning several centuries, Colours, Commodities and the Birth of Globalization takes the reader from 1500 through the industrial revolutions of Europe and the United States and culminates in the synthetic age of the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Ranging from the indigo trade in the Atlantic to the secrets of the Indian production of cochineal, the chapters in this collection transcend nationally bounded historical narratives and explore transoceanic dynamics, imperial ambitions and the cross-cultural exchange of knowledge and techniques to better understand the birth of globalization.

Presents a range of rich primary sources

Preface (Dominique Cardon)1. Introduction: The Colours of Globalisation (Carlos Marichal and David Pretel, El Colegio de México, Mexico and University of Madrid, Spain)2. The Natural Dyes of the Americas from a Comparative Historical Perspective: Geography, Labor and Trade. (Carlos Marichal, El Colegio de México, Mexico)3. A Place in the Sun: Brazilwood and the Atlantic Trades 1500-1875 (Jobson Arruda, University of São Paulo, Brazil)4. The Travels of Cochineal from Mexico to Europe: The Most Precious Dye in Art and Trade (Georges Roque, French National Centre for Scientific Research and School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, France)5. Cochineal and the changing patterns of consumption of red dyes in Early Modern textile industries (Ana Serrano, Rijksmuseum and University of Amsterdam, Netherlands)6. The Making of Colonial Blue: Mesoamerican Indigo in the Iberian Atlantic (Adrianna Catena and Huemac Escalona, University of Warwick, UK and National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico)7. 'Desolate and uninhabited places': Logwood and the historical political ecology of British designs on Central America (Karl Offen, Syracuse University, UK)8. From Local to Global: The History of Indigo in 18th century Venezuela. (Frederique Langue, French National Centre for Scientific Research, France)9. Indigo and Slavery in Colonial South Carolina (Andrea Feeser, Clemson University, USA)10. Costa Rican Tropical Dyewoods in Global Context, 1885-1940 (Anthony Goebel McDermott and Ronny J. Viales Hurtado, Universidad de Costa Rica, Costa Rica)11. Extractive Economies and Trade in Dyewoods in the Colombian Caribbean 1700-1900 (Jorge Elías-Caro, Universidad de Magdalena, Columbia)12. A Lagoon of Colour. Logwood exploitation in the Yucatan Peninsula during the 19th century (Pascale Villegas and Rosa Torres, Universidad de Campeche and National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico)13. After the End: Caribbean and Central American Dyewoods in the Synthetic Age (David Pretel, University of Madrid, Spain)Selected bibliography