Colin M. Lewis is Professor Emeritus of Latin American Economic History at the London School of Economics & Political Science, an Honorary Professorial Fellow of the Institute for the Americas, University College London, an Associate Fellow of the Institute for Latin American Studies, School of Advanced Studies, University of London, and an overseas member of the Argentinian Academy of History.
Colin holds a PhD in Economic History from the University of Exeter, where he was supervised by Christopher (DCM) Platt. He is a member of the editorial boards of Estudios de Sociologia and Historia Económica + Historia de Empresa. His major periods of field research have been spent in São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, and Recife, though he has made brief field trips to Antofagasta, Lima and Santiago de Chile. He has held visiting professorships at several universities, including the Faculty of Economics & Management, University of São Paulo (Brazil), the Department of History, University of California at Irvine (USA), the Faculty of Economics, University of Buenos Aires (the Argentine), the Faculty of History, the University of the 3rd of February (the Argentine), the Department of Economics and Institute of Iberian & Latin American Studies, University of Augsburg (Germany), the Faculty of Business & Management, Federal University of Minas Gerais (Brazil) and the Programme of Economics & Sociology, Federal University of Pernambuco (Brazil). He has attended conferences and given guest lectures elsewhere in Latin America, principally Colombia and Mexico, and visited most South American countries. In addition, he has taught short courses about Latin American Economic History and/or Latin American Development at the universities of Beijing, JNU (New Delhi), La Rábida, Osaka, Oviedo, St. Antony’s College, Oxford, and University College, London.
Colin has written various books and articles about development and investment, the history of social protection and welfare, economic imperialism and the political economy of state formation.
His recent monographs include:
British Railways in Argentina, 1857-1914 (London, 2nd ed., 2015) and Argentina: A Short History (London 2002); and such collections (edited with Christopher Abel) as Economic Imperialism and the State (London, 2nd ed., 2015) and Exclusion and Engagement: Social Policy in Latin America(London 2002).
Recent articles and contributions include:
“Colonial” Industry and “Modern” Manufacturing: opportunities for labour-intensive growth in Latin America, c.1800-1940’ in Gareth M. Austin & Kaoru Sugihara (eds.) Labour-intensive Industrialisation in Global History (London, 2012) pp.231-62; (with Peter Lloyd-Sherlock)
‘Social Policy and Economic Development in South America: an historical approach to social insurance’ Economy and Society XXXVIII 1 (2009) 109-31
‘Las economías de exportación’ in Eduardo Posada Carbó (ed.) Historia General de América Latina: Tomo VII: Los proyectos nacionales – sus instrumentos y articulación (Paris, 2009) pp.79-110; (with Andrew Mitchell) ‘Fiscal Policy and External Constraints: state credibility, taxation, public goods and the budget’ in Iwan Morgan & Diego Sánchez Ancochea (eds.) Political Economy of the Public Budget in the Americas (London, 2008) pp.33-59
‘Modernisation and Industrialisation’ in Thomas H. Holloway (ed.) History of Latin America (Oxford, 2008) pp.285-306.
Colin is currently finishing a book about British businesses in the Argentine and has been commissioned to write an historical dictionary of the Argentine.