Coffee Anyone? Recent Research on Latin American Coffee Societies
Author(s)
Topik, Steven
Abstract
The main purpose of this essay is to trace the changing perspectives applied to the historical study of coffee societies and to suggest that the current trend in history towards deconstructing categories and exploding verities, while salutary, should perhaps return to seeking patterns through bounded generalizations that ask broader questions about the commonalities shared by coffee producers and the degrees of freedom of action that local producers enjoy. In other words, does coffee production impose certain structures and world views? In a recent issue of the Hispanic American Historical Review, Eric Van Young suggested that we should “take another look at economic history as cultural history.” Many of the recent students of coffee societies have done just that. The challenge is to go from particular historically-grounded cases to broader generalizations. This not only accentuates the importance of the study of the past but brings to life the historical economic actors who too often are caricatured as predictable “economically rational men.” By marrying social, cultural, and economic history, historians can accentuate the limitations of neoliberal analyses that are currently animating Latin American economic policy at a considerable detriment to the peoples of Latin America.
