A Coffee Frontier in Latin America: Land, Society, and Politics in Duaca, Venezuela, 1830-1936 Book

This study views the economic transformation of Duaca, Venezuela into a major coffee export center in the late nineteenth century. Yarrington examines the rise of the peasantry to prosperity, yet they later lost their stature as the local elite allied itself with the state to restructure society and coffee production on its own terms in the twentieth-century. The book is a pioneering study on peasant studies, export-led development, the relationship of state and society, and the consolidation of nation-states in Latin America.

"Meticulously researched and well written, this regional study details the evolution of rural society in the Lara region. Argues that coffee production in Duaca produced a large and autonomous peasantry but that, in the early 20th century, local elites used their connections with the centralizing state to monopolize land and resources, curtailing the autonomy of smallholders"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.