Copper, economic colonialism and globalization: the British investment in the Cerro Muriano mines (Cordoba, Spain, 1897-1919)

Abstract

During the first two decades of the 20th century the Cerro Muriano copper mines (Córdoba, Spain), by that time already famous due to the abundant remains of ancient workings preserved there, were developed on an industrial scale by several English investors, who entrusted the management of their enterprise to the prestigious London-based agency John Taylor & Sons. This article comprises a concise microeconomic analysis of the venture, which then forms the basis for a more generalised consideration of two international historic phenomena: the economic colonialism which led to the world-wide proliferation of this type of mining operations; and the resultant “proto-globalization” of economic, technological and social systems around the mining world.