William R. Summerhill isa professor of history at UCLA. His research focuses on the determinants of long-run political and economic change in Latin America, with particular emphasis on Brazil.
"Using a vast array of archival evidence Summerhill convincingly
shows that political commitment to a secure public debt was neither
necessary nor sufficient to insure financial development in
nineteenth century Brazil. A must-read for economic and financial
historians and for anyone interested in the politics of financial
development."--Jean-Laurent Rosenthal, California Institute of
Technology
*Jean-Laurent Rosenthal*
"Inglorious Revolution addresses a frontier question in political
economy: new states need sources of finance, but how can a new
state make a credible commitment to its creditors that it will
repay its debts? Inglorious Revolution shows that Brazil solved
this commitment problem by creating a constitutional monarchy
in which parliament held the reins of power and was composed of a
tight knit class of merchants and planters who were the state's
creditors. Credibility came at a cost however, because this
merchant-planter elite made sure that almost nothing happened in
Brazil without their say-so, and they almost never said yes.
Nineteenth century Brazil therefore had stable public finances, and
avoided the endless coups and civil wars that plagued new states in
Latin America and Africa, but it remained economically
backward."--Stephen Haber, Stanford University
*Stephen Haber*
"This volume is one of the most original studies of 19th century
Brazilian public finance published in any language. It not
only provides a wealth of original research material but has raised
fundamental issues about why Imperial Brazil’s extraordinary record
of international credit in the 19th century did not lead to a major
financial and capital development. Does this unusual case of
a credit worthy state which still did not grow provide a useful
counterbalance to the theories of economic growth. Summerhill makes
a good argument for this thesis and thus the book will prove to be
of much broader interest to the field of economic history and
economic development."--Herbert S. Klein, Columbia University &
Stanford University
*Herbert S. Klein*
"Inglorious Revolution is a welcome contribution to Brazilian
economic history. This polished, original book will become the main
reference for the study of imperial Brazil for historians and
economic historians in the years to come.”—Aldo Musacchio, Harvard
Business School and Brandeis International Business School
*Aldo Musacchio*
"A critical weakness of much scholarship on long-run economic
development is that it makes generalizations from a few salient
histories, usually of European countries. In Britain change in
political institutions allowing the government to borrow apparently
led to a financial revolution. But this brilliant book shows that
exactly analogous political changes in Brazil did not have the same
consequences. A Trojan horse in the conventional wisdom."--James A.
Robinson, University of Chicago
*James A. Robinson*
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