As a part of Great Britain’s free trade empire, Chile enjoyed a century of prosperity which owed much to British trade, finance, and, ultimately, direct investment. Drawing on an array of British archival sources, Couyoumdjian paints a richly detailed portrait of that relationship in its climactic phase, when the first clear signs of decay appeared in the Chilean economy and in its British ties.
The most significant portions of the book focus on the impact of British economic warfare and the development of the nitrate industry. The author demonstrates that such measures as the black list, while intended to cripple German wartime trade, were also designed to permanently eliminate, or at least reduce, German competition. In his examination of the nitrate industry, Couyoumdjian explores how competition from synthetics, increasing government involvement, and efforts at consolidation all established important precedents for the radical industrial changes of the interwar years.
Echoing the thesis of D. C. M. Platt, the author concludes that Britain’s declining role in Chile was attributable to a conscious choice to concentrate its forces at home and within the protected markets of its formal empire. Couyoumdjian’s conclusion does not take into account the work of such scholars as Donald McCloskey and suggestive evidence from his own sources on the larger issue of Britain’s economic decline. The predominance of the United States in copper and later nitrates, as well as its displacement of Britain in machinery and automobile imports, point to the central question of why Britain failed to embrace the second industrial revolution as thoroughly as did the United States. Other than a discussion of British tax structures, Couyoumdjian does not address this long-standing debate, nor does he consider how factors within Chile, such as low labor costs and oligopolistic conditions, might have contributed to Britain’s failure to innovate. Yet the book, with its prodigious use of primary sources and strong narrative, still contributes to our understanding of the twilight years of Chile’s nitrate age and Great Britain’s informal empire.
