Copper Workers, International Business, and Domestic Politics in Cold War Chile

“A wonderful portrait of Potrerillos and Salvador, one that was lacking in either English or Spanish. This book is a must-read for students of world copper history.”

–William W. Culver American Historical Review

“Vergara effectively weaves together the plentiful supply of existing scholarship on the Anaconda workers and mixes it with new data of her own, especially concerning corporate efforts to modernize both mines and towns in the post-war era and developments during the period of socialization in the early 1970s.”

–Thomas O’Brien Enterprise and Society

“A solidly researched and well-written history of the least known of Chile’s large copper mines. . . . A major original contribution to our understanding of Cold War Chile that demonstrates the centrality of copper miners, their unions, and leaders to Chile’s social, economic, and political history.”

–Peter Winn, Tufts University

“Vergara provides an easy-to-read and exhaustively researched account of the negotiations among labor unions, U.S. capital, and the state in Chile’s strategic copper sector during the critical Cold War era. She demonstrates how outlawing of the Communist Party and mounting political conflict over the power of foreign capital shaped labor relations and the copper industry. An important contribution to our understanding of nationalism, state policies, and transnational capital.”

–Karin Rosemblatt, Syracuse University

Angela Vergara is Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Los Angeles.