Publication: United by grass, separated by coal: Uruguay and New Zealand during the First Globalization
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2020-07-01
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Cambridge University Press (CUP)
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Abstract
While the role of coal has been the subject of long-running debate in the historiography of the Industrial
Revolution, its part in the economic development of the global periphery has been comparatively neglected.
The technological context of the ‘First Globalization’ (c.1870–1914) made pastoral production in the
periphery increasingly dependent on modern energy, as new methods of production and transportation
bridged the distance between grasslands in the south of the world and kitchens in the north. By comparing
choices of meat preservation techniques in Uruguay and New Zealand – two small settler economies that
prospered on the back of pastoral exports – this article highlights the usefulness of an energy perspective on
agriculture-based transitions to modern economic growth. Different conditions of access to coal shaped
how New Zealanders and Uruguayans exploited their livestock herds when terms of trade favoured them
the most, with important consequences for the persisting income gap between them.
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Comparative History, Energy, First Globalization, Livestock, Settler Economy
Bibliographic citation
Travieso, E. (2020). United by grass, separated by coal: Uruguay and New Zealand during the First Globalization. In Journal of Global History (Vol. 15, Issue 2, pp. 269–289). Cambridge University Press (CUP).