This study carefully dissects a critical but understudied phase of Catalonia’s industrial development by focusing on the cotton industry from the establishment of calico printing to the first steam-powered factory. It was during this period that the industry made the transition from commercial to industrial capitalism. J. K. J. Thomson’s work refines, amplifies, and modifies Pierre Vilar’s interpretation of Catalonia’s economic expansion in La Catalogue dans l’Espagne moderne (1962), and thereby complements Vilar’s landmark three-volume study.
Chapter 1, a superb introduction to the issues and controversy surrounding industrialization processes in Catalonia, is followed in chapter 2 by a brief history of wool cloth production in Barcelona. Chapters 3 through 6 trace the chronological development of the cotton industry from its foundation through its expansion and consolidation during the second half of the eighteenth century. Chapter 7 analyzes the incorporation of spinning into the industry at the turn of the century, and the final two chapters focus on a pivotal period of development occasioned by the War of Independence, post-crisis development, and the introduction of new technology in the 1830s. Finally, the book addresses more general issues of interpretation raised in the introduction, such as the extent of continuity between the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century manufacture of cotton in Barcelona. It also places the evolution of the industry in the context of Catalonia’s economic dualism: a healthy market economy and a location favorable for international trade.
Of particular interest to historians of colonial Latin America are the author’s analyses of links between the growth of the industry and the U.S. market (pp. 162-67, 211-12), and the importance of U.S. cotton to the spinning industry (pp. 235-38, 246-47, 274-76). Thomson finds that the market in indianas was not “export-driven” but based on domestic demand, and that U.S. cotton boosted the spinning industry and enabled production of higher-quality cloth.
Each chapter is divided into subsections that address the effects of government intervention, sources and availability of capital and markets, and supply influences. However, the tight organization of this meticulously researched presentation is offset by lengthy and unwieldy sentences that often make the narrative difficult to follow. Nevertheless, social and economic historians will find this a unique and welcome addition to comparative studies of industrial development.
