User:Richard Lyle Garner

RLG At Desk

BACKGROUND

I am retired but still a working historian. I do research in several different fields. My most prominent endeavors are in the economic history of colonial Latin America. I have also published in the fields of antebellum American ideology, concept of American self-government, comparative New World slave history and American mining history

I was born and raised in Western Pennsylvania. My father quit school in 8th grade and worked as a heavy-machine operator and an underground coal-miner with brief stints as an owner of an appliance store and then a clothing store. My mother graduated from high school and secretarial school but was mainly a homemaker.

I was the first to go to college on either side of the family. I earned an MA in history at the University of Pittsburgh and a PhD in history at the University of Michigan. I spent 10 years in administration at Pitt and Coe College. I taught history at Penn State for nearly 30 years. In retirement I have lived in Lake Tahoe, Paris and now Ann Arbor.

I maintain a website with my writings and other interests at http://www.insidemydesk.com

Richard Lyle Garner, Ann Arbor, MI

COLONIAL LATIN AMERICAN ECONOMIC HISTORY

My main research has been the economies of colonial Latin America, in particular Mexico and Peru. My research is heavily numeric with a principal focus on trends, both long-term and short-term. I have collected data from many different archives in the Americas and Spain, but I have also used collections of data assembled by others. I have employed standard statistical methods such as indexes and regressions in order to try to achieve as clear and accurate a picture of how the colonial economies and sectors within those economies performed over time. I have made an effort to present my findings in a manner that highlights the results rather than the methodology. Some of my writings are in print but since 2000 I have chosen to offer them online without charge. My aim is simply to make the findings as widely available as possible.

Below I have listed pertinent articles and books in print with their external access links, if they exist. The dates are from 1972 through 1997.

1972: "Problémes d'une ville miniére mexicaine á la fin de l'époque coloniale: prix et salaires á Zacatecas (1760-1821)," Cahiers des Amériques Latines, 6, 75-111 at https://www.insidemydesk.com/lapubs/ZacPricesWages.pdf

1978: "Reformas borbónicas y operaciones hacendarias — La real caja de Zacatecas - 1750-1821," Historia Mexicana, 27:4, 542-587 at https://historiamexicana.colmex.mx/index.php/RHM/article/view/2714/2224

1980: "Silver Production and Entrepreneurial Structure in Eighteenth-Century Mexico," Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, 17, 157-185 at https://www.insidemydesk.com/lapubs/ZacEntre-1.pdf

1982: "Exportaciones de circulante en el siglo XVIII," Historia Mexicana, 31:4, 544-598 at https://historiamexicana.colmex.mx/index.php/RHM/article/view/2608/2119

1987: "Price Trends in Eighteenth-Century Mexico," Hispanic American Historical Review, 65:2, 279-326 at https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/65/2/279/148264/Price-Trends-in-Eighteenth-Century-Mexico

"Further Consideration of 'Facts and Figments in Bourbon Mexico,'" Bulletin of Latin American Research, 6:1, 55-63 Available online if one has access to JSTOR at https://historiamexicana.colmex.mx/index.php/RHM/article/view/2608/2119

1988: "Long-Term Silver Mining Trends in Spanish America: A Comparative Analysis of Peru and Mexico," American Historical Review, 93:4, 889-914. [Reprinted in Peter Bakewell, ed., Mines of Silver and Gold in the Americas. Vol. 19 of A. J. R. Russell-Wood, ed., An Expanding World. The European Impact on World History, 1450-1800. 30 vols. Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1997] at https://www.insidemydesk.com/lapubs/CompSil.pdf

1990: "Prices and Wages in Eighteenth-Century Mexico," in Lyman Johnson and Enrique Tandeter, eds., Essays on the Price History of Eighteenth-Century Latin America. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press, 73-108. [Not yet available online but soon will be]

1993: With Spiro Stefanou. Economic Growth and Change in Bourbon Mexico. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. [Not available online. Must be purchased. Negotiations underway.] Pro Paul Gootenberg wrote a critique shortly after the book was published. It offers a good overview of the book's contents and is available online at https://www.insidemydesk.com/lapubs/gootenbergcritique.pdf

1995: With Virginia García Acosta. "En torno al debate sobre la inflación en México durante el siglo XVIII," in Jorge Silva Riquer, Juan Grosso and Carmen Yuste, eds., Circuitos mercantiles y mercados en Latinoamérica. Siglos XVIII-XIX. Mexico: Instituto de Investigaciones Dr. José María Luis Mora, 161-178. A scanned copy exists as a PDF on the web at https://www.researchgate.net/publication/344569696_CIRCUITOS_MERCANTILES_Y_MERCADOS_EN_LATINOAMERICA/link/5f80a38492851c14bcbbde9e/download [Eventually I will make this available in an easier format.]

1997: "An Exchange on the Eighteenth-Century Mexican Economy," The Americas, 54:1, 109-123 [With Richard Salvucci, available on JSTOR if one has access through a library or by personal account.]

1997: "Mining: Colonial" in Michael Werner, ed., Encyclopedia of Mexico, History, Society & Culture. 2 vols. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers, 2: 914-917.[Not available online.]

1997: "Prices and the Economic History of Colonial Mexico," in Alain Musset and Thomas Calvo, eds., Des Indes occidentales á l'Amérique latine: à Jean-Pierre Berthe. 2 vols. Fontenay-aux-Roses (France): ENS Éditions Fontenay/Saint-Cloud, 439-452. Series: Sociétés, Espaces, Temps. Not yet available online.]

After 1997 I submitted no other manuscripts for print publication but instead uploaded them to the Internet for scholars and others to consult and download free of charge. In 2007 I more or les retired from the field of colonial Latin American history and took up projects dealing with US antebellum political and ideological conflicts and US 19th-century western mining camps. My US history essays will appears in a separate section

2006: "WHERE DID THE SILVER GO?" at https://www.insidemydesk.com/lapubs/NetDraft-SilverGoRev.pdf ABSTRACT An examination of the statistical and non-statistical sources dealing with trade between the Spanish colonies and the Philippines from the late sixteenth century through the first half of the seventeenth century. An attempt is made to establish a statistical baseline, based on the official records, from to describe and measure the movement and flow of merchandise from the Philippines to the Spanish colonies and of bullion from Acapulco to Manila within the context of a cyclical mining sector and a vacillating royal policy. I have assembled and analyzed some new datasets based on the research of Engel Sluiter, John TePaske, etc., and I have tried to weigh these results against the robust projections of merchandise imports and bullion exports by Dennis Flynn. Although the portrait remains unfinished, it appears to have an ebb and flow that is somewhat different from the prevailing interpretations.