With a few exceptions the study of Latin American price trends and weather cycles has not been undertaken until recent decades. The reasons have been lack of adequate training in the techniques needed and perhaps even more the problems of finding adequate runs of data. Now the data on the price of maize during the years 1708-1810 (especially 1721-1810) have been found in Mexico City. Enrique Florescano discovered them in the records detailing sales of maíz delgado—the most commonly consumed variety of Indian corn—from the alhóndiga and the pósito. Although the records have been scattered, he has been able to put together price series (essentially the price to consumers) for a large part of the maize sold at retail in Mexico City. Unfortunately, there are gaps in his series, especially for the earlier years, and so few quotations in some years that the use of the data might be challenged. (At issue would be the validity of plotting the long-term trend and cycles.)
The techniques of treatment come from French training and reflect the methods and concerns of the VIe Section in Paris. The data are scrupulously presented in the appendices and are carefully analyzed in text, tables, and graphs, with careful explanation of measures, procedures, and problems. Florescano assesses the meaning of the calendar year and the movement of the agricultural year in studying price, the seasonable movement of prices within the agricultural year, and the longer-range cyclical movements that depended in large measure upon the abundance of the harvest. For the period 1721-1810, he finds ten cycles of varying length but usually greater toward the end. According to Florescano, there is no marked secular trend, but the entire term of years might be divided into two subperiods—one of relatively low and more stable prices (1721-1778) and a second of rising prices (1778-1810). In 1808-1813 the average price of maize was the highest of the entire term except for the famine years 1785-1788. In an especially suggestive section, Florescano compares the Mexican experience with secular trends and cycles as established by European studies and finds remarkable agreements.
The most debated parts of the volume are likely to be those in which he interprets the meaning of his findings for social history. He finds the eighteenth century, on the whole, to be a period of stagnant wages and rising food prices and would regard the existence of pressure as confirmed by the increase in crime shown in the statistics of the Tribunal de la Acordada. One of Florescano’s interpretations concerning the eighteenth century reflects the current debate on structural versus monetary explanations of economic crisis in underdeveloped countries. He suggests that this century in Mexico was marked by a contradiction of agricultural structures. The years 1721-1778, with their lower prices, were ones of pressure on the hacienda; but after 1778, with rising prices, the hacienda gained ground as against smaller holdings and consumers. The sharply rising prices of 1808-1813 would explain much of the disaffection and popular unrest in the Independence movements.
Florescano’s study is a fine, systematic analysis, making as full use of data as our knowledge permits at this point. There can be no doubt that we have at El Colegio de México another well-trained and able colleague in historical research.
