------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------  
Published by EH.NET (June 2006)  
  
Fernando Rocchi, _Chimneys in the Desert: Industrialization in   
Argentina during the Export Boom Years, 1870-1930_. Stanford, CA:   
Stanford University Press, 2005. xviii + 394 pp. $70 (cloth), ISBN:   
0-8047-5012-2.  
  
Reviewed for EH.NET by Joel Horowitz, Department of History, St.   
Bonaventure University.  
  
  
Argentina's inability to sustain the prosperity, which in the late   
1920s made it one of the richest countries in the world, has led to   
much speculation about the causes of that failure. Many have placed a   
good deal of the blame on Argentina's failure to create a   
self-sustaining process of industrialization. However, as Fernando   
Rocchi (Chair, Department of History, Universidad Torcuato Di Tella,   
Argentina) points out in the book under review, there have been   
extremely few modern systematic studies of the early stages of   
industrialization. Many commentators have just accepted the view,   
which principally came from the industrialists, that early   
industrialization occurred in a largely hostile environment, since   
the primary providers of credit, the state owned banks, were   
unwilling to grant loans and little or no tariff protection was   
provided.  
  
Rocchi sets out to shift this vision. His work is wide ranging, well   
written and extremely perceptive. It is based on an impressive array   
of sources, including but not limited to company and bank records and   
diplomatic archives. Given the state of the archives and libraries,   
this is an extraordinary accomplishment. In many cases, the author   
makes his point by showing how individual companies operated. In this   
way we can see the micro level, as well as the larger trends. As   
Rocchi points out, Argentine industrialization differed from the   
classical models since the country had little in the way of an   
artisanal tradition. Most of its skilled workers were immigrants. For   
Rocchi the key hindrance to industrialization lay in the small size   
of the market that prevented the achievement of enough efficiency to   
win markets abroad. This was despite the rapid population growth,   
creation of a national market, and a culture of consumption.   
Argentina also lacked key inputs such as coal and iron and had   
relatively high labor costs. Rocchi argues, quite convincingly, that   
industrialization was not constrained by the inability to obtain   
capital from the state controlled banks. He demonstrates, using the   
archives of the Banco de la Nacion and the Banco de la Provincia de   
Buenos Aires, that numerous large and medium-sized companies did   
receive loans from state controlled banks. Companies also raised   
money on the stock market. He argues, however, that self financing,   
which was very common, may have been the best strategy given the   
volatility of consumer demand which depended on foreign purchases of   
Argentine exports. Rocchi does not really demonstrate that consumer   
demand was that much less dependable than in other countries.  
  
How much tariff protection industry had is difficult to demonstrate   
given the complex way that rates were calculated, but Rocchi makes   
clear that industrial production was frequently protected by either   
protective or revenue tariffs. Arguments in congress show that   
critical support existed for the idea of protecting industry. Clearly   
the conditions for industrialization were much more complex than has   
usually been thought and it would be difficult to classify them as   
hostile.  
  
Rocchi's goals are larger than just showing the beginning of   
industry. He devotes a well crafted chapter to the creation of a   
consumer society in Buenos Aires, which in many ways resembled that   
of the contemporary North Atlantic world with department stores and   
the like. Harrods, the well known English department store, even had   
a branch in Buenos Aires. The author also includes a chapter on how   
Buenos Aires-based firms created national markets for themselves,   
intensifying the central role of the city in Argentine economics.   
Large firms were created, as were trusts. Rocchi also discusses how   
conflict with the labor force helped forge cooperation between   
industrialists.  
  
Rocchi gives us a picture of a rather dynamic sector of the economy   
that responds relatively well to growing demands but is limited by   
the size and nature of the economy. This is a convincing argument but   
not one without flaws. The author is, at times, somewhat too   
determined to claim originality for his arguments. He clearly builds   
on others and while he has made by far the best case for his ideas,   
at times he does not give others all their due. More importantly,   
although the book purports to cover the period from 1870 to 1930,   
very little material exists for the period after the first fair   
presidential election in 1916. We therefore lack a full discussion of   
the impacts of World War I and of the 1920s. In the latter period the   
nature of industrialization shifted due to the intensification of   
direct investment by foreign firms, particularly from the United   
States. If one is going to make arguments about the nature of   
industrialization prior to the Great Depression, it would be helpful   
to know more about these changes.  
  
Despite these caveats, Fernando Rocchi has given us an excellent work   
that has reshaped our vision of early industrialization in Argentina.   
It also helps us to understand some of the innate problems of the   
economy and shows why some of the prescriptions later given for the   
economy did not solve its problems. Like all good books, this should   
inspire further research. Anyone interested in the problematic   
history of the Argentine economy will find this book a stimulating   
and convincing work.  
  
  
Joel Horowitz is Professor of History at St. Bonaventure University   
and is currently finishing a monograph on political mobilization in   
Buenos Aires between 1916 and 1930.  
  
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