FRONTIERS 295to modernize, few would predict their rapid convergence with the
North American republics, even with the help of such common mar
kets as NAFTA.
The divergent story of North America (ex-British) on the one hand,
Latin America (ex-Spanish and Portuguese) on the other, needs mul
tiple explanation. Economists would not always have it so. For them,
one good reason is enough, and where the Americas are concerned, the
best reason is resources. These frontier lands abounded in natural
wealth, but this wealth proved differentially useful in the context of the
new industrial technologies. Here the United States came out best:
large expanses of fertile, virgin land; a fine climate for growing a cru
cial industrial-entry raw material, namely, cotton; rich deposits of the
key ingredients for ferrous metallurgy; plenty of wood and coal for
fuel, plus generous waterpower all along the east coast; an abundance
of petroleum, valuable from the mid-nineteenth century for light, as lu
bricant, and above all as fuel for internal combustion motors; copper
ores in quantity, ready by the end of the nineteenth century for the
burgeoning demands of electrical power, motors, and transmission.
And along with this went relatively convenient lines of access and com
munication: a well-indented coastiine punctuated by superb harbors,
large rivers (above all, the Mississippi and its affluents), and wide plains.
The only serious mountain barrier between the Atiantic and the Rock
ies was the Appalachians, and here a number of gaps opened to trade
and travel, in particular, the breach made by the Hudson River and the
flat stretch to the Great Lakes. Here man was able to improve on na
ture, as the Erie Canal and railroads opened the Middle West to Mid
dle Atiantic ports.
In these respects, the United States was more favored than other
parts of the New World. No other country had iron and coal, for ex
ample, in proximity; no other had comparable natural ways of transport
and communication. By comparison, Mexico is a puzzle of mountains,
plateaus, and deserts—not without its good places but poorly joined,
as railway builders found out. Much of Brazil is tropical and subtrop
ical, so that the awesome Amazon river basin is even now penetrated
with difficulty. Argentina is the country most comparable to the United
States in its natural features and accessibility; but immigration there was
long impeded and the key industrial raw materials are wanting.
One could, then, argue, as numerous economists have, that Ameri
can priority in development was predetermined by nature—the luck of
the draw. Recendy, however, scholars have advanced a more complex