The posthumous publication of the second volume of Oscar Bermúdez Mirál’s history of the nitrate industry is a fitting tribute to one of Chile’s most distinguished historians. Much like the first volume which traced the industry’s development literally from its prehistory to the War of the Pacific, this work reflects the author’s thorough command of the sources and his balanced historical judgment.
Bermúdez Miral develops the topic in four separate sections which examine the status of the nitrate industry in the various desert regions where it was located, its development under the Chilean government’s free market regime, and the evolution of Chilean policy toward the industry in the years after the occupation of the nitrate regions. The discussion of the industry’s development between the War of the Pacific and 1891 is an excellent study in microcosm of the impact of foreign technology and capital on Latin America in the late nineteenth century. While critical of Chilean policymakers who shaped the industry’s future after the capture of Peruvian and Bolivian nitrate territories, Bermúdez Miral places those decisions in their proper context. He describes the complex legal and financial structures which the Peruvian government had imposed on the industry during the 1870s, and the numerous challenges which faced the Chilean government, including pressure from foreign bondholders, investors, and governments, as well as the need to finance its ongoing war effort.
The author’s ability to weigh conflicting data and arrive at reasonable historical judgments is equally evident in his discussion of the Civil War of 1891, a topic which stimulates as much rancorous debate among historians as it did among the actual participants. The political ineptitude of President José Manuel Balmaceda clearly emerges, but so does his commitment to preventing the creation of a complete foreign monopoly in Chile’s most important economic activity. That same objectivity emerges in the treatment of the foreign entrepreneurs and engineers who played such a critical role in the development of nitrates. Bermúdez Miral is rightfully critical of such figures as John Thomas North and Robert Harvey whose flotation of numerous nitrate companies on the London Stock Exchange did little to advance the industry’s development. Yet he does not hesitate to highlight the contributions of the English engineer James Humberstone whose technical genius ushered in a new era of productivity and prosperity in the decades after the war. These well-reasoned historical judgments, combined with excellent technical treatment of a complex subject, make the book a valuable addition to Chilean historiography.
Don Oscar’s failing health did not permit him to further refine this work. Clearly, there are themes such as the roles that monopoly capital and domestic politics played in shaping the industry which he would have wanted to explore at greater length and in greater depth. Yet, what he has left us in this volume will, like his first work on the subject, become the standard by which future studies of the topic will be judged.
