This two volume edited collection presents a diverse and comprehensive examination of the history of Latin American agriculture over the last 150 years. It will fill a major gap in the literature by offering a coherent study of the agricultural sector that both involves all the national economies while revising and updating existing research on the long-run evolution of agriculture across the continent and its links with overall economic development.

The first volume focuses on transversal and general issues that have faced Latin American agriculture from 1870 to 2020, demonstrating patterns of structural transformation that have emerged over decades. Chapters focus on the history of agrarian reforms, environmental resources, the labour market and the role of gender, agricultural trade, production and productivity and non-farming rural activities in the sector, as well as understudied emergent topics such as environmental degradation in long-run perspective and regional agriculturalprocesses. The volume introduces readers to a set of key contexts in which to understand intertwined histories of agriculture on a national scale, something that volume II delves into in the form of case studies. The book will be a valuable resource for scholars of economic and agricultural history, as well as development economics and Latin American economic policy.

Miguel Martín-Retortillo is Associate Professor of Economic History at the University of Alcala, Spain. His academic interests are related to agriculture and its main transformations in a long term perspective. The focus of his research has been in European and Latin American agriculture. He has also worked at the University of Zaragoza and Pompeu Fabra University.

Vicente Pinilla is Professor in Economic History at the University of Zaragoza and researcher at the Instituto Agroalimentario de Aragon, in Spain. His research interests are in international trade, agricultural products, long-term agricultural changes, environmental history, wine economics and depopulation processes and policies.

Jackeline Velazco-Portocarrero is an Associate Professor of Economics affiliated with the University of Girona (Spain) and the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú. She holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies, with a specialization in agricultural and rural development, from the International Institute of Social Studies in The Hague. She obtained a PhD in Economics from the University of Manchester and a PhD in Economic History from the University of Barcelona. Her research focuses on the long-term analysis of agrarian productivity from a Latin American perspective, the role of agriculture in economic growth, urban–rural linkages over time, and the importance of non-farm rural activities within family farming systems.

Henry Willebald is a faculty member of Economic Institute (IECON), Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y de Administración (FCEA), Universidad de la República, Uruguay, and Full Professor in Economic History and Economic Development.  His research interests are in modern economic growth in settler economies and Latin American countries, diverse dimensions of economic development at national and regional level, inequality, productive specialization, natural resources and sustainability. His recent books are Tirado-Fabregat, D., Badia-Miró, M. and Willebald, H. (eds.) (2020) Time and Space: Latin American Regional Development in Historical Perspective. Palgrave Studies in Economic History. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ISSN: 2662-6497, and Pinilla, V. and Willebald, H. (eds.) (2018) Agricultural Development in the World Periphery. A Global Economic History Approach.