The allure of the foreign
Subtitle: imported goods in postcolonial Latin America
By: edited by Benjamin Orlove.
Contributors: Orlove, Benjamin S.
Series: Linking levels of analysis
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Published: 1997
Place of publication: Ann Arbor
Language: eng
Number of pages: 226
Subjects: Consumption (Economics) -- Latin America -- History.; Imports -- Latin America -- History.; Consumer goods -- Latin America -- History.
Description: The contributors to The Allure of the Foreign trace instances of the demand for imported goods and their patterns of use - as well as the smaller number of cases in which local goods retained their popularity - to investigate why foreign goods became so popular only after the creation of independent Latin American republics. They find that this fascination stemmed from the cultural dilemmas of the new Latin American nations.

Caught between a desire to separate themselves from their former European rulers and the wish to join a new global modernity, Latin Americans developed ways of using European and North American goods to show off newly invented national identities. With its variety of economics, social, and cultural approaches, this book will appeal to readers in many fields, including consumption studies and economic history as well as anthropology and Latin American studies.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-214) and index.
Table of contents: title: Giving importance to imports / Benjamin Orlove and Arnold J. Bauer; title: Changing consumption patterns and everyday life in two Peruvian regions : food, dress, and housing in the central and southern highlands (1820-1920) / Thomas Krüggeler; title: From benches to sofas : diversification patterns of consumption in San José (1857-1861) / Patricia Vega Jiménez; title: Foreign cloth in the lowland frontier : commerce and consumption of textiles in Bolivia, 1830-1930 / Eric D. Langer; title: Chile in the belle epoque : primitive producers, civilized consumers / Benjamin Orlove and Arnold J. Bauer; title: Imports and standards of justice on the Mexico-United States border / Josiah McC. Heyman; title: Building from migration : imported design and everyday use of migrant houses in Mexico / Peri L. Fletcher.