Margarita Fajardo

I am a historian of modern Latin America, particularly of Brazil, Chile, and Colombia, with interest and expertise in the global history of capitalism as well as the history of economic ideas and economic life. I am also a faculty member at Sarah Lawrence College in New York. I received my PhD from Princeton University and my BAs in History and Economics from Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. I have received fellowship from Duke University, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Wilson Center and others.

My first book The World that Latin America Created: The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America in the Development Era, published by Harvard University Press in 2022, tells the history of cepalinos and dependentistas and their impact in the region’s economic development and in global economic governance and in the global social sciences.

At Oxford, I am a Marie Skłodowska Curie Fellow, working on a new project tentatively titled Taming Markets. Focusing on coffee and copper, this book project explores the history of commodity market regulation in the transition to a neoliberal order in Latin America and the world. The book explores global South cooperation, the financial life of commodities, authoritarian trade policies, and the legacies of developmentalism.

My published work has appeared in the American Historical Review, Latin American Research Review, and several edited volumes on Latin American and international development.