The Unifomity of the Chain

The book From Silver to Cocaine is an interesting collection of essays by what I consider largely economic historians.  In contrast to the past several readings, this collection focus more on the analysis of the “commodity chain” and less on the societal and cultural impacts  or vice versa of a commodity.  The focus on the commodity rather than the nations gives this collection an international feel because following the chain is the most important aspect of the analysis, regardless of where it goes.  In surveying twelve Latin American commodities, the editors produced a relatively seamless and uniformly structured look at what Latin America offered the rest of the world.  Each author approached their particular commodity by describing what it was, why it was important and when, how capital was involved in production as well as labor, trade issues and consumer demand.   The collection essentially uses commodity chain analysis to explain to supply and demand of a specific commodity. 

I chose to survey several reviews of the book to see how the “community “accepted the volume.  One of the statements that stood out for me was by Suzanna Reiss from the University of Hawaii in the “Journal of World History”.  She said “Elaborating the “chain” metaphor as an alternative to dependency theorists’ “core and periphery,” they argue profits not only accumulated in the core, but also benefited “local capitalists at the supply end of the chain.”  I like this summary of how the essays treated the chain within the context of the world in which it was distributed.  Isaac Campos of the University of Cincinnati states in the journal “The Americas”, that “The approach certainly has potential for building in Latin American history.”  He goes on to cite the dual view of many essay (economics and cultures of economic exchange), specifically giving a nod to Arjun Appadurai’s theories in the book Commodity: A social life of things.  All reviews that I surveyed liked the structure and analysis methods of the essays.

The reviews found on the blogs in the class are a little more critical, like the input Joseph had on his blog – “Overall, From Silver to Cocaine is similar to The Social Life of Things, in the sense that both books consist of non-economists trying to draw conclusions about the interplay between culture and the market.”  Carol appreciated the models found in the essays of From Silver to Cocaine, but lamented in her conclusion that “… it isn’t clear to me what the theories are that the editors want historians to utilize, unless they are the basic theories of modern economics.  That would be helpful.”  I found the essays somewhat repetitive analysis on the dozen commodities helpful in establishing the impact of the economics of the “commodity chain”, but it made the conclusions somewhat predictable.