A distinctive industrialization: cotton in Barcelona, 1728-1832

Abstract

This is a study of the development of Barcelona's cotton industry from its origins in calico-printing in 1728 to its introduction of steam-power in 1832. Although it serves as an industrial history, a principal aim is to throw light on wider issues. It bridges the "pre-industrial' and early "industrial' periods. A further purpose is to provide an interpretation of the characteristics of the Catalan economy and of its relationship to that of Spain as a whole thereby contributing to the understanding of the "Catalan question'. This it attempts by an analysis of Catalonia's industrial development over the very long term in which a dualism occasioned by the alternating dominance of "commercial' and "industrial' capital is demonstrated and by a focus on the links between the area's industrial growth and, on the one hand, the economic policies of the Spanish State and, on the other, developments in national and colonial markets. -from Publisher