Santiago Montenegro’s book examines the Colombian textile industry during the first half of the twentieth century. The author’s analysis of the foundation and development of major factories during this period indicates that the industry’s initial influx of capital came from commerce. This refutes the thesis, put forth by other authors, that coffee and industrial capitalists were a single group.
When international textile prices dropped in the second half of the 1920s, companies such as Coltejer and Fabricato that had acquired state-of-the-art American machinery in the previous generation began to produce fabric of higher quality and surpassed other manufacturers. They later concentrated textile production in the Medellin area. Montenegro critiques the CEPAL study of Colombian industry originally published in 1957. Using careful statistical analysis, he demonstrates that the rapid industrial expansion of the 1930s was achieved through massive imports of machinery and did not simply make use of surplus capacity, as...
