A. The Plan of Investigation
This investigation unveils to what extent the coffee industry was responsible for the modernization of the Brazilian economy. The investigation focused on the accounts of the coffee industry flourishing in Brazil and the effects of the coffee industry on the economy. In order to get a detailed record of the coffee industry’s effect on the Brazilian economy, one must look at accounts of how coffee shaped Brazil’s commerce and infrastructure. It is important to be aware of the transition period from sugar as Brazil’s major export to coffee. The history of coffee was thoroughly investigated for signs of important effects on the Brazilian economy. The Brazilian state of São Paulo was analyzed because São Paulo is commonly known by the world as “Coffee Land” as Bertita Harding puts in her book The Southern Empire (83).
The two sources chosen for this evaluation, A Visit to King Coffee by Stefan Zweig and A History of Brazil by E. Bradford Burns are evaluated for their origins, purposes, limitations, and values.
B. Summary of Evidence
The Transition from Sugar to Coffee
Coffee took over the once prosperous sugar industry in Brazil. The efficiency and price of the sugar mill in the West Indies sugar mills in the 1860s drove Brazil off the international market (Burns 151). Also, is it important to note that other countries started to experiment with sugar beet, a plant whose roots have a high concentration of sucrose. This reduced the value of the exported sugar from Brazil. As E. Bradfurd Burns put it, the coffee industry repeated many old economic characteristic used in the sugar industry such as having a single crop raised mostly for export and a dependency on foreign markets for prosperity (151).
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...orld's Coffee Cup." Brazil Looks Forward. Rio De Janeiro: Serviço Gráfico Do Instituto Brasileiro De Geografia E Estatística, 1945. 66-82. Print.
Kelsey, Vera. "São Paulo." Seven Keys to Brazil. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1940. 103+. Print.
King, Winfield C. Brazil's Coffee Industry. Washington, D.C.: Foreign Agricultural Service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, 1962. Print.
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In document 7a, it tells when sugar got attention worldwide rich people started moving to the West Indies to grow because everyone wanted sugar and sugar makes you a lot of money. The more you consume sugar, the more you will start to
In the written piece “Noble Savages” by John Hemming he give an historic account of different European adventures in the Brazilian mainland. He also tells some of the stories about the Brazilian people that were taken back to Europe about the savages’ way of life.
Tompkins, C., 2009. The paradoxical effect of the documentary in Walter Salles’s “Central do Brasil”. Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature 33 no1 p9-27
Bergad, Laird. "The Coffee Boom,1885-1897," from Bergad, Coffee and Agrarian Capitalism in Nineteenth-Century Puerto Rico (Princeton: Princeton U Press, 1883) 145-203.
Veloso, Caetano, and Barbara Einzig. Tropical Truth: A Story of Music and Revolution in Brazil. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo, 2003. Print.
Larry Rohter was a journalist in Brazil for 14 years and from his experiences he offers in this book some unique insights into Brazilian history, politics, culture and more. In 10 topical chapters Rohter’s easy-to-read book provides a look at Brazilian history and the extraordinary changes the country has undergone -- and is still undergoing. Rother covers many significant issues, but several stand out more than others. Namely: the country’s history, culture, politics, and finally its economy/natural wealth.
Mattoso, Katia M de Queiros: To be a slave in Brazil 1550-1888 (New Jersey, 1986)
the Portuguese had a sudden interest in Brazil because of French and Spanish invaders, and because of the economic downfall that was taking place in India. The Spanish were succeeding in Peru, which in turn made the Portuguese bitter, but the Portuguese still believed that Brazil had a value yet to be discovered. The thriving of Brazil finally came with the introduction of sugarcane during the mid-sixteenth century, but the Portuguese did not see much success until after 1570. Sugarcane trade was primarily in control of Muslims; prior to expanding their empires, the Europeans made a devastating political choice of expelling Moors from Europe, which in turn caused the Muslims to stop sugar trade with the Europeans. Therefore, sugar became
Sugar was first grown in New Guinea around 9000 years ago, which New guinea traders trade cane stalks to different parts of the world. In the New world christopher columbus introduced cane sugar to caribbean islands. At first sugar was unknown in Europe but was changed when sugar trade first began. Sugar trade was driven by the factors of production land which provided all natural resources labor what provided human resources for work and capital which includes all the factories and the money that’s used to buy land. Consumer demand was why sugar trade continued to increase.
Due to its high population rate (large labour pool), its vast natural resources and its geographical position in the centre of South America, it bears enormous growth potential in the near future. Aligned with increasing currency stability, international companies have heavily invested in Brazil over the past decade. According to CIA World Factbook, Brazil had the 11th largest PPP in 2004 worldwide and today has a well established middle income economy with wide variations in levels of development. Thus, today Brazil is South America's leading economic power and a regional leader. 2.
Before 1930, the Brazilian economy was dominated by a number of agricultural and mineral products for export. The world economic depression of the 1930s encouraged the government to diversify the economy, particularly through industrialization. Consequently, the importance of agriculture and mining has fallen significantly. A major objective of Brazil's industrialization policy was to replace imported manufactures with Brazilian-made ones. It is now able to export goods such as iron ore, soybeans, footwear, and coffee. Its imports include machinery and equipment, chemical products, oil, and electricity.
Neruda, Pablo. “The United Fruit Co.” Trans. Ben Beltt. One World of Literature. Ed. Kristin Watts Peri, Lynn Walterick, and Robin Bushnell Hogan. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Copany, 1993. 793-794. Print.
Kamola, Isaac A. "The Global Coffee Economy And The Production Of Genocide In Rwanda." Third World Quarterly 28.3 (2007): 571-592. Academic Search Premier. Web. 22 Sept. 2013.
The movement particularly emphasizes on exports from developing countries to developed countries, with products such as handicrafts, coffee, cocoa, sugar, tea, bananas, honey, cotton, wine, fresh fruit, chocolate, flowers and gold. Moreover, coffee is one of the most widely traded goods in the world. For many developing countries, coffee trade is an important source of income. Producers can provide a better trading and improve terms of trade. Moreover, this allows producers to improve workers’ living environment and future life in general (De Pelsmacker, Driessen and Rayp, 2005).
When comes to Economic aspect, coffee is the second most traded product in the world after petroleum. As the country’s economy is dependent on agriculture, which accounts for about 45 percent of the GDP, 90 percent of exports and 80 percent of total employment, coffee is one of the most important commodities to the Ethiopian economy. It has always been the country’s most important cash crop and largest export commodity. (Zelalem Tesera p