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Economic Rationality and British Overseas Investment: Brazilian Coffee Plantations, 1900-1950
28 January 2020, 5:30 pm–7:00 pm
An IHR Latin American History seminar.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Institute of Historical Research and UCL Institute of the Americas
Location
-
Seminar Room 105UCL Institute of the Americas51 Gordon SquareLondonWC1H 0PN
Different patterns of estate proprietorship and their resulting cultivation systems have attracted scholarly attention leading some to conclude that smallholdings are superior as a form of agricultural ownership and production. If so, it is curious that British capitalists invested heavily in Brazilian coffee plantations both before and, more substantially after, the First World War. This paper explores this paradox and concludes that the investment was not necessarily irrational.
About the Speaker
Robert Greenhill (PhD, University of Exeter) is currently an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Liverpool, having formerly been Head of the Department of Business Studies at London Guildhall University (1997-2002) before retiring fully from teaching in 2009. A business historian who has written, occasionally in partnership with Rory Miller, on British commercial enterprise in Latin America, his specific areas of interest are the Brazilian coffee trade, British shipping in South American and the Chilean nitrate industry. He is the co-author (with Edmar Bacha) of 150 Anos de Café (Rio de Janeiro, Salamandra, 1992) and has published some 20 or more essays and papers, including one awarded a prize for the best article in the journal Business History in 1995.